#
# INSTALL -- installation instructions
#
-# $Id$
-#
--------------
Installing nmh
build instructions for your operating system. To build nmh, you will
need an ANSI C compiler such as gcc.
-1) Run the command
+0) If you have obtained nmh by checking it out of CVS, you will
+ need to run the GNU autotools to regenerate some files.
+ (If your directory already contains a file 'config.h.in'
+ then this has already been done and you do not need to do it.)
+ You can regenerate the files by running the command
+
+ ./autogen.sh
+
+ (Note that if you're doing nmh development, you should look at
+ docs/README.developers, since there is other developer-friendly
+ advice there as well.)
- sh configure [options]
+1) From the top-level source directory, run the command
- This will check the configuration of your OS, and create
- the include file config.h, as well as the various Makefiles.
+ ./configure [options]
- The configure script accepts various options. The options of
- most interest are listed below. To see the list of all available
- options, you can run
+ This will check the configuration of your OS, and create the
+ include file config.h, as well as the various Makefiles.
- sh configure --help
+ The configure script accepts various options. The options of
+ most interest are listed in a section below. To see the list
+ of all available options, you can run
-2) (IMPORTANT) Edit the user configuration section at the beginning
- of the generated include file `config.h'. Currently, not everything
- is auto-configured, so some #defines must be set manually.
+ ./configure --help
-3) Edit the user configuration section at the top of the main Makefile.
+2) Look through the user configuration section at the beginning
+ of the generated include file `config.h'. You may
+ want to customize some #defines for your environment.
-4) make
+3) make
-5) make install
+4) make install
-6) Edit the file `mts.conf' (installed in the nmh `etc' directory)
+ Note that if you have [n]mh files in your install directories with
+ the same names as the files being installed, the old ones will get
+ overwritten without any warning. The only directory that isn't
+ true for is the `etc' directory -- in that directory, the previous
+ copy of each <file> will be backed up as <file>.prev if it differs
+ from the newly-installed copy. Watch for any diff output while
+ make is processing that directory to see if you need to merge
+ changes from *.prev files into the new versions.
+
+5) Edit the file `mts.conf' (installed in the nmh `etc' directory)
and make any necessary changes for the mail transport interface
you are using.
The default `mts.conf' file assumes you retrieve new mail from
a local (or NFS mounted) maildrop, and send outgoing mail by
injecting the message to a mail transfer agent (such as sendmail)
- on the local machine via SMTP.
-
- If you have enabled POP support and you want this to be the
- default method of accessing new mail, you will need to change
- the values of the variables "servers", "pophost", "localname",
- and possibly "mmailid".
-
- a) "servers" defines the server to which you send outgoing SMTP
- traffic.
-
- b) "pophost" defines the server that runs the POP daemon, and to
- which `inc' and `msgchk' will query for new mail.
-
- c) "localname" defines the hostname that nmh considers local.
- If not set, then nmh queries your OS for this value. You may
- want to change this if you wish your e-mail to appear as if it
- originated on the POP server.
-
- d) "mmailid" is checked to see if nmh should do username
- masquerading. If the value of this field is non-zero, then
- nmh will check if the pw_gecos field in the password file
- has the form
-
- Full Name <fakeusername>
-
- If the pw_gecos field has this form, then the internal nmh
- routines that find the username and full name of a user will
- return "fakeusername" and "Full Name" respectively. This is
- useful if you wish messages that you send to appear to come
- from the username of your POP account, rather than your username
- on the local machine.
-
- If you compile with POP support, but only want to use it occasionally,
- then you can always use the `-host' and `-user' options to `inc'
- and `msgchk' instead of changing `mts.conf'.
-
- Check the `mh-tailor' man page for a list of all the available
- options for this file.
-
-7) If you have enabled POP support, make sure that `pop3' (or more
- precisely the value of the define POPSERVICE in config.h) is defined
- in the /etc/services file (or its NIS/NIS+ equivalent) on the client
- machine. It should be something equivalent to "110/tcp". This might
- have already been done when the pop daemon was installed.
-
-8) Edit the file `mhn.defaults' (installed in the nmh `etc' directory).
- This file contains the default profile entries for the nmh command
- `mhn' and is created by the script `mhn.defaults.sh'. This script
- will search a generic path (essentially your $PATH) for programs to
- handle various content types (for example, xv to display images).
- You can re-run this script and give it a more tailored path. You may
- want to re-run this script later if you install new programs to
- display content. An example of this is:
-
- cd support/general
- ./mhn.defaults.sh /usr/local/bin:/usr/X11/bin:/usr/ucb > mhn.defaults
+ on the local machine.
+
+ Check the `mh-tailor' man page for a list of all the available options
+ for this file ("masquerade" may be of particular interest).
+
+6) Edit the file `mhn.defaults' (installed in the nmh `etc' directory).
+ This file contains the default profile entries for the nmh commands
+ mhlist/mhstore/mhshow and is created by the script `mhn.defaults.sh'.
+ This script will search a generic path (essentially your $PATH) for
+ programs to handle various content types (for example, xv to display
+ images). You can re-run this script and give it a more tailored
+ path. You may want to re-run this script later if you install new
+ programs to display content. An example of this is:
+
+ % cd support/general
+ % ./mhn.defaults.sh /usr/local/bin:/usr/X11/bin:/usr/ucb > mhn.defaults
and then move `mhn.defaults' into the nmh `etc' directory.
The `mhn.defaults.sh' script only searches for a simple set of programs.
If you have specialized programs to handle various types, you will need
to edit the `mhn.defaults' file manually. The syntax of this file is
- described in the man page for `mhn', and in section 9.4 of the book
- "MH & xmh: Email for Users and Programmers", 3rd edition, by Jerry Peek.
+ described in section 9.4 of the book "MH & xmh: Email for Users and
+ Programmers", 3rd edition, by Jerry Peek, on the Internet at
+ <http://www.ics.uci.edu/~mh/book/mh/confmhn.htm>.
-9) Add an optional global mh.profile, if desired. This profile should be
+7) Add an optional global mh.profile, if desired. This profile should be
placed in the nmh `etc' directory with the name `mh.profile'. This
file will be used to construct the initial .mh_profile of a new nmh
user, but will not be consulted after that.
nmh's binaries (show, inc, comp, ...) are installed here.
--libdir=DIR (DEFAULT is ${prefix}/lib)
- nmh's support binaries (post, slocal, mhl, ...) are installed here.
+ nmh's support binaries (spost, slocal, mhl, ...) are installed here.
--sysconfdir=DIR (DEFAULT is ${prefix}/etc)
nmh's config files (mts.conf, mhn.defaults, ...) are installed here.
--mandir=DIR (DEFAULT is ${prefix}/man)
nmh's man pages are installed here.
---with-mts=MTS (DEFAULT is smtp)
- specify the mail transport system you want to use. The two
- acceptable options are "smtp" (which is the default), and
- "sendmail".
-
- If you use "smtp", this will enable a direct SMTP (simple
- mail transport protocol) interface in nmh. When sending
- mail, instead of passing the message to the mail transport
- agent, `post' will open a socket connection to the mail
- port on the machine specified in the `mts.conf' file
- (default is localhost), and speak SMTP directly.
-
- If you use "sendmail", then `post' will send messages by
- passing forking a local copy of sendmail. Currently it
- will still speak SMTP with this local copy of sendmail.
-
- If you wish to use a transport agent other than sendmail, you will
- need to use a `sendmail wrapper'.
-
---with-editor=EDITOR (DEFAULT is vi)
- specify the full path of the default editor to use. If this
- option is not given, then the configuration process will search
- for the `vi' command and use it as the default. If you wish to
- specify an interface which is compatible with MH, then use the
- nmh command `prompter'. If you specify `prompter', then you don't
- need to give the full pathname.
-
---with-pager=PAGER (DEFAULT is more)
- specify the default pager (file lister) to use. If this option
- is not given, then the configuration process will search for the
- command `more' and use it as the default.
-
---enable-nmh-mhe (DEFAULT)
- Add support for the Emacs front-end `mhe'.
+--enable-debug
+ Enable debugging support.
---enable-nmh-pop
- Enable client-side support for pop.
+--enable-masquerade[='draft_from mmailid username_extension']
+ If this option is disabled, the mts.conf file will contain the
+ line "masquerade: " (with no value), which may be manually edited
+ later. You may find it convenient to specify a value at
+ configure-time, however, so that each time nmh is reinstalled,
+ the right value will be there. By default, it is enabled.
---with-krb4=PREFIX
- Specify the location of Kerberos V4 for KPOP support. You will
- also need to specify the option `--enable-nmh-pop'. After running
- configure, you will probably need to change the POPSERVICE define
- in config.h. See the comments inside config.h for details.
+ The above usage shows the default, with all three masquerade
+ options being specified. Any subset of the three may be
+ specified.
---with-hesiod=PREFIX
- Specify the location of Hesiod.
+ See the mh-tailor(5) man page for full documentation of "masquerade:".
+
+--enable-mhe (DEFAULT)
+ Add support for the Emacs front-end `mhe'.
---enable-nmh-debug
- Enable debugging support.
+--with-locking=LOCKTYPE (DEFAULT is dot)
+ Specify the locking mechanism when attempting to "inc" or
+ "msgchk" a local mail spool. Valid options are "dot",
+ "fcntl", "flock", and "lockf". Of the four, dot-locking
+ requires no special kernel or filesystem support, and simply
+ creates a file called "FILE.lock" to indicate that "FILE" is
+ locked.
+
+ In order to be effective, you should contact the site
+ administrator to find out what locking mechanisms other
+ mail delivery and user programs respect. The most common
+ reason not to use dot-locking is if the mail spool directory
+ is not world- or user-writeable, and thus a lock file cannot
+ be created.
+
+--with-ndbm=LIB (DEFAULT is to autodetect)
+--with-ndbmheader=HEADER (DEFAULT is to autodetect)
+ Specify the header file (eg ndbm.h) and library (eg ndbm) to use
+ to compile against the ndbm database library. By default, configure
+ will try various possibilities until it finds one that works; this
+ option only needs to be specified if the autodetection fails or
+ makes the wrong choice.
+
+ If either of these options is given then the other must also be
+ specified.
--
-Richard Coleman
-coleman@math.gatech.edu
+The nmh team
+nmh-workers@nongnu.org