2 # INSTALL -- installation instructions
8 Please read all of the following instructions before you begin
11 You should check the MACHINES file to see if there are any specific
12 build instructions for your operating system. To build mmh, you will
13 need an ANSI C compiler such as gcc.
15 0) If you have obtained mmh by checking it out of git, you will
16 need to run the GNU autotools to regenerate some files.
17 (If your directory already contains a file 'config.h.in'
18 then this has already been done and you do not need to do it.)
19 You can regenerate the files by running the command
23 (Note that if you're doing mmh development, you should look at
24 docs/README.developers, since there is other developer-friendly
25 advice there as well.)
27 1) From the top-level source directory, run the command
31 This will check the configuration of your OS, and create the
32 include file config.h, as well as the various Makefiles.
34 The configure script accepts various options. The options of
35 most interest are listed in a section below. To see the list
36 of all available options, you can run
40 2) Look through the user configuration section at the beginning
41 of the generated include file `config.h'. You may
42 want to customize some #defines for your environment.
48 Note that if you have [n]mh files in your install directories with
49 the same names as the files being installed, the old ones will get
50 overwritten without any warning. The only directory this isn't
51 true for, is the `etc' directory -- in that directory, the distributed
52 files are installed with a `.dist' suffix if they differ from the
53 existing file. Watch for information messages while make is processing
54 that directory to see if you need to merge changes.
56 5) Edit the file `mts.conf' (installed in the mmh `etc' directory)
57 and make any necessary changes for the mail transport interface
60 The default `mts.conf' file assumes you retrieve new mail from
61 a local (or NFS mounted) maildrop, and send outgoing mail by
62 injecting the message to a mail transfer agent (such as sendmail)
65 Check the `mts.conf(5)' man page for a list of all the available
66 options for this file ("masquerade" may be of particular interest).
68 6) Edit the file `mhn.defaults' (installed in the mmh `etc' directory).
69 This file contains the default profile entries for the mmh commands
70 mhlist/mhstore/mhshow and is created by the script `mhn.defaults.sh'.
71 This script will search a generic path (essentially your $PATH) for
72 programs to handle various content types (for example, xv to display
73 images). You can re-run this script and give it a more tailored
74 path. You may want to re-run this script later if you install new
75 programs to display content. An example of this is:
78 % ./mhn.defaults.sh /usr/local/bin:/usr/X11/bin:/usr/ucb > mhn.defaults
80 and then move `mhn.defaults' into the mmh `etc' directory.
82 The `mhn.defaults.sh' script only searches for a simple set of programs.
83 If you have specialized programs to handle various types, you will need
84 to edit the `mhn.defaults' file manually. The syntax of this file is
85 described in section 9.4 of the book "MH & xmh: Email for Users and
86 Programmers", 3rd edition, by Jerry Peek, on the Internet at
87 <http://www.ics.uci.edu/~mh/book/mh/confmhn.htm>.
89 -----------------------------------------------
90 Compiler options, or using a different compiler
91 -----------------------------------------------
92 By default, configure will use the "gcc" compiler if found. You can use a
93 different compiler, or add unusual options for compiling or linking that
94 the "configure" script does not know about, by either editing the user
95 configuration section of the top level Makefile (after running configure)
96 or giving "configure" initial values for these variables by setting them
97 in the environment. Using a Bourne-compatible shell (such as sh,ksh,zsh),
99 you can do that on the command line like this:
100 CC=c89 CFLAGS=-O2 LIBS=-lposix ./configure
102 Or on systems that have the "env" program, you can do it like this:
103 env CPPFLAGS=-I/usr/local/include LDFLAGS=-s ./configure
105 ----------------------------------------
106 Building mmh on additional architectures
107 ----------------------------------------
108 To build mmh on additional architectures, you can do a "make distclean".
109 This should restore the mmh source distribution back to its original
110 state. You can then configure mmh as above on other architectures in
111 which you wish to build mmh. Or alternatively, you can use a different
112 build directory for each architecture.
114 ---------------------------------
115 Using a different build directory
116 ---------------------------------
117 You can compile the mmh in a different directory from the one containing
118 the source code. Doing so allows you to compile it on more than one
119 architecture at the same time. To do this, you must use a version of
120 "make" that supports the "VPATH" variable, such as GNU "make". "cd" to
121 the directory where you want the object files and executables to go and
122 run the "configure" script. "configure" automatically checks for the
123 source code in the directory that "configure" is in. For example,
125 cd /usr/local/solaris/mmh
126 /usr/local/src/mmh-1.0/configure
129 ---------------------
130 Options for configure
131 ---------------------
132 --prefix=DIR (DEFAULT is /usr/local/mmh)
133 This will change the base prefix for the installation location
134 for the various parts of mmh. Unless overridden, mmh is installed
135 in ${prefix}/bin, ${prefix}/etc, ${prefix}/lib, ${prefix}/man.
137 --bindir=DIR (DEFAULT is ${prefix}/bin)
138 mmh's binaries (show, inc, comp, ...) are installed here.
140 --libdir=DIR (DEFAULT is ${prefix}/lib)
141 mmh's support binaries (spost, slocal, mhl, ...) are installed here.
143 --sysconfdir=DIR (DEFAULT is ${prefix}/etc)
144 mmh's config files (mts.conf, mhn.defaults, ...) are installed here.
146 --mandir=DIR (DEFAULT is ${prefix}/man)
147 mmh's man pages are installed here.
150 Enable debugging support.
152 --enable-masquerade[='draft_from username_extension']
153 If this option is disabled, the mts.conf file will contain the
154 line "masquerade: " (with no value), which may be manually edited
155 later. You may find it convenient to specify a value at
156 configure-time, however, so that each time mmh is reinstalled,
157 the right value will be there. By default, it is enabled.
159 The above usage shows the default, with all two masquerade
160 options being specified. Any subset of the two may be
163 See the mh-tailor(5) man page for full documentation of "masquerade:".
165 --enable-mhe (DEFAULT)
166 Add support for the Emacs front-end `mhe'.
168 --with-locking=LOCKTYPE (DEFAULT is dot)
169 Specify the locking mechanism when attempting to "inc" or
170 "msgchk" a local mail spool. Valid options are "dot",
171 "fcntl", "flock", and "lockf". Of the four, dot-locking
172 requires no special kernel or filesystem support, and simply
173 creates a file called "FILE.lock" to indicate that "FILE" is
176 In order to be effective, you should contact the site
177 administrator to find out what locking mechanisms other
178 mail delivery and user programs respect. The most common
179 reason not to use dot-locking is if the mail spool directory
180 is not world- or user-writeable, and thus a lock file cannot
183 --with-ndbm=LIB (DEFAULT is to autodetect)
184 --with-ndbmheader=HEADER (DEFAULT is to autodetect)
185 Specify the header file (eg ndbm.h) and library (eg ndbm) to use
186 to compile against the ndbm database library. By default, configure
187 will try various possibilities until it finds one that works; this
188 option only needs to be specified if the autodetection fails or
189 makes the wrong choice.
191 If either of these options is given then the other must also be
195 markus schnalke <meillo@marmaro.de>
196 and the nmh team <nmh-workers@nongnu.org>
projects / mmh / blob