2 # INSTALL -- installation instructions
10 Please read all of the following instructions before you begin
13 You should check the MACHINES file to see if there are any specific
14 build instructions for your operating system. To build nmh, you will
15 need an ANSI C compiler such as gcc.
17 0) If you have obtained nmh by checking it out of CVS, you will
18 need to run the GNU autotools to regenerate some files.
19 (If your directory already contains a file 'config.h.in'
20 then this has already been done and you do not need to do it.)
21 You can regenerate the files by running the command
25 (Note that if you're doing nmh development, you should look at
26 docs/README.developers, since there is other developer-friendly
27 advice there as well.)
29 1) From the top-level source directory, run the command
33 This will check the configuration of your OS, and create the
34 include file config.h, as well as the various Makefiles.
36 The configure script accepts various options. The options of
37 most interest are listed in a section below. To see the list
38 of all available options, you can run
42 2) Look through the user configuration section at the beginning
43 of the generated include file `config.h'. You may
44 want to customize some #defines for your environment.
50 Note that if you have [n]mh files in your install directories with
51 the same names as the files being installed, the old ones will get
52 overwritten without any warning. The only directory that isn't
53 true for is the `etc' directory -- in that directory, the previous
54 copy of each <file> will be backed up as <file>.prev if it differs
55 from the newly-installed copy. Watch for any diff output while
56 make is processing that directory to see if you need to merge
57 changes from *.prev files into the new versions.
59 5) Edit the file `mts.conf' (installed in the nmh `etc' directory)
60 and make any necessary changes for the mail transport interface
63 The default `mts.conf' file assumes you retrieve new mail from
64 a local (or NFS mounted) maildrop, and send outgoing mail by
65 injecting the message to a mail transfer agent (such as sendmail)
66 on the local machine via SMTP.
68 If, instead, all your mail sending and receiving occurs on a
69 remote POP/SMTP server, you will need to look at the values of the
70 variables "localname", "pophost", and "servers":
72 a) "localname" defines the hostname that nmh considers local.
73 If not set, then nmh queries your OS for this value. You will
74 want to change this if you wish your e-mail to appear as if it
75 originated on the POP server.
77 b) "pophost" defines the server that runs the POP daemon, and to
78 which `inc' and `msgchk' will always query for new mail.
80 c) "servers" defines the server to which you send outgoing SMTP
83 If you compile with POP support, but don't want to use it exclusively,
84 you can use the `-host' and `-user' options to `inc' and `msgchk'
85 rather than hardcoding pophost in `mts.conf'.
87 Check the `mh-tailor' man page for a list of all the available options
88 for this file ("masquerade" may be of particular interest).
90 6) If you have enabled POP support, make sure that `pop3' (or more
91 precisely the value of the define POPSERVICE in config.h) is defined
92 in the /etc/services file (or its NIS/NIS+ equivalent) on the client
93 machine. It should be something equivalent to "110/tcp". This might
94 have already been done when the POP daemon was installed.
96 7) Edit the file `mhn.defaults' (installed in the nmh `etc' directory).
97 This file contains the default profile entries for the nmh command
98 `mhn' and is created by the script `mhn.defaults.sh'. This script
99 will search a generic path (essentially your $PATH) for programs to
100 handle various content types (for example, xv to display images).
101 You can re-run this script and give it a more tailored path. You may
102 want to re-run this script later if you install new programs to
103 display content. An example of this is:
106 % ./mhn.defaults.sh /usr/local/bin:/usr/X11/bin:/usr/ucb > mhn.defaults
108 and then move `mhn.defaults' into the nmh `etc' directory.
110 The `mhn.defaults.sh' script only searches for a simple set of programs.
111 If you have specialized programs to handle various types, you will need
112 to edit the `mhn.defaults' file manually. The syntax of this file is
113 described in the man page for `mhn', and in section 9.4 of the book
114 "MH & xmh: Email for Users and Programmers", 3rd edition, by Jerry Peek,
115 on the Internet at <http://www.ics.uci.edu/~mh/book/mh/confmhn.htm>.
117 9) Add an optional global mh.profile, if desired. This profile should be
118 placed in the nmh `etc' directory with the name `mh.profile'. This
119 file will be used to construct the initial .mh_profile of a new nmh
120 user, but will not be consulted after that.
122 -----------------------------------------------
123 Compiler options, or using a different compiler
124 -----------------------------------------------
125 By default, configure will use the "gcc" compiler if found. You can use a
126 different compiler, or add unusual options for compiling or linking that
127 the "configure" script does not know about, by either editing the user
128 configuration section of the top level Makefile (after running configure)
129 or giving "configure" initial values for these variables by setting them
130 in the environment. Using a Bourne-compatible shell (such as sh,ksh,zsh),
132 you can do that on the command line like this:
133 CC=c89 CFLAGS=-O2 LIBS=-lposix ./configure
135 Or on systems that have the "env" program, you can do it like this:
136 env CPPFLAGS=-I/usr/local/include LDFLAGS=-s ./configure
138 ----------------------------------------
139 Building nmh on additional architectures
140 ----------------------------------------
141 To build nmh on additional architectures, you can do a "make distclean".
142 This should restore the nmh source distribution back to its original
143 state. You can then configure nmh as above on other architectures in
144 which you wish to build nmh. Or alternatively, you can use a different
145 build directory for each architecture.
147 ---------------------------------
148 Using a different build directory
149 ---------------------------------
150 You can compile the nmh in a different directory from the one containing
151 the source code. Doing so allows you to compile it on more than one
152 architecture at the same time. To do this, you must use a version of
153 "make" that supports the "VPATH" variable, such as GNU "make". "cd" to
154 the directory where you want the object files and executables to go and
155 run the "configure" script. "configure" automatically checks for the
156 source code in the directory that "configure" is in. For example,
158 cd /usr/local/solaris/nmh
159 /usr/local/src/nmh-1.0/configure
162 ---------------------
163 Options for configure
164 ---------------------
165 --prefix=DIR (DEFAULT is /usr/local/nmh)
166 This will change the base prefix for the installation location
167 for the various parts of nmh. Unless overridden, nmh is installed
168 in ${prefix}/bin, ${prefix}/etc, ${prefix}/lib, ${prefix}/man.
170 --bindir=DIR (DEFAULT is ${prefix}/bin)
171 nmh's binaries (show, inc, comp, ...) are installed here.
173 --libdir=DIR (DEFAULT is ${prefix}/lib)
174 nmh's support binaries (post, slocal, mhl, ...) are installed here.
176 --sysconfdir=DIR (DEFAULT is ${prefix}/etc)
177 nmh's config files (mts.conf, mhn.defaults, ...) are installed here.
179 --mandir=DIR (DEFAULT is ${prefix}/man)
180 nmh's man pages are installed here.
183 Enable debugging support.
185 --enable-masquerade[='draft_from mmailid username_extension']
186 If this option is disabled, the mts.conf file will contain the
187 line "masquerade: " (with no value), which may be manually edited
188 later. You may find it convenient to specify a value at
189 configure-time, however, so that each time nmh is reinstalled,
190 the right value will be there. By default, it is enabled.
192 The above usage shows the default, with all three masquerade
193 options being specified. Any subset of the three may be
196 See the mh-tailor(5) man page for full documentation of "masquerade:".
198 --enable-mhe (DEFAULT)
199 Add support for the Emacs front-end `mhe'.
202 Enable client-side support for pop.
205 Enable client-side support for apop (Authenticated POP).
207 --with-editor=EDITOR (DEFAULT is vi)
208 specify the full path of the default editor to use. If this
209 option is not given, then the configuration process will search
210 for the `vi' command and use it as the default. If you wish to
211 specify an interface which is compatible with MH, then use the
212 nmh command `prompter'. If you specify `prompter', then you don't
213 need to give the full pathname.
216 Specify the location of Hesiod.
219 Specify the location of Kerberos V4 for KPOP support. After
220 running configure, you will need to change the POPSERVICE #define in
221 config.h if you want to use KPOP exclusively (rather than being able
222 to switch between KPOP and normal POP3). See the comments inside
223 config.h for details.
225 --with-locking=LOCKTYPE (DEFAULT is dot)
226 Specify the locking mechanism when attempting to "inc" or
227 "msgchk" a local mail spool. Valid options are "dot",
228 "fcntl", "flock", and "lockf". Of the four, dot-locking
229 requires no special kernel or filesystem support, and simply
230 creates a file called "FILE.lock" to indicate that "FILE" is
233 In order to be effective, you should contact the site
234 administrator to find out what locking mechanisms other
235 mail delivery and user programs respect. The most common
236 reason not to use dot-locking is if the mail spool directory
237 is not world- or user-writeable, and thus a lock file cannot
240 --with-mts=MTS (DEFAULT is smtp)
241 Specify the default mail transport system you want to use. The two
242 acceptable options are "smtp" (which is the default), and
243 "sendmail". This value will be put into the mts.conf file. You
244 may find it convenient to specify a value at configure-time,
245 however, so that each time nmh is reinstalled, the right value will
248 If you use "smtp", this will enable a direct SMTP (simple mail
249 transport protocol) interface in nmh. When sending mail, instead
250 of passing the message to the mail transport agent, `post' will
251 open a socket connection to the mail port on the machine specified
252 in the `mts.conf' file (default is localhost), and speak SMTP
255 If you use "sendmail", then `post' will send messages by forking a
256 local copy of sendmail. Currently it will still speak SMTP with
257 this local copy of sendmail.
259 If you wish to use a transport agent other than sendmail, you will
260 need to use a `sendmail wrapper'.
262 --with-ndbm=LIB (DEFAULT is to autodetect)
263 --with-ndbmheader=HEADER (DEFAULT is to autodetect)
264 Specify the header file (eg ndbm.h) and library (eg ndbm) to use
265 to compile against the ndbm database library. By default, configure
266 will try various possibilities until it finds one that works; this
267 option only needs to be specified if the autodetection fails or
268 makes the wrong choice.
270 If either of these options is given then the other must also be
273 --with-pager=PAGER (DEFAULT is more)
274 Specify the default pager (file lister) to use. If this option
275 is not given, then the configuration process will search for the
276 command `more' and use it as the default.
278 --with-smtpservers='SMTPSERVER1[ SMTPSERVER2...]' (DEFAULT is localhost)
279 If this option is not specified, the mts.conf file will contain
280 the line "servers: localhost", which may be manually edited later.
281 You may find it convenient to specify a value at configure-time,
282 however, so that each time nmh is reinstalled, the right value will be
285 See the mh-tailor(5) man page for full documentation of "servers:".
289 nmh-workers@nongnu.org