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 nmh, you will
13 need an ANSI C compiler such as gcc.
15 0) If you have obtained nmh by checking it out of CVS, 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 nmh 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 that isn't
51 true for is the `etc' directory -- in that directory, the previous
52 copy of each <file> will be backed up as <file>.prev if it differs
53 from the newly-installed copy. Watch for any diff output while
54 make is processing that directory to see if you need to merge
55 changes from *.prev files into the new versions.
57 5) Edit the file `mts.conf' (installed in the nmh `etc' directory)
58 and make any necessary changes for the mail transport interface
61 The default `mts.conf' file assumes you retrieve new mail from
62 a local (or NFS mounted) maildrop, and send outgoing mail by
63 injecting the message to a mail transfer agent (such as sendmail)
64 on the local machine via SMTP.
66 If, instead, all your mail sending and receiving occurs on a
67 remote SMTP server, you will need to look at the values of the
68 variables "localname" and "servers":
70 a) "localname" defines the hostname that nmh considers local.
71 If not set, then nmh queries your OS for this value.
73 b) "servers" defines the server to which you send outgoing SMTP
76 Check the `mh-tailor' man page for a list of all the available options
77 for this file ("masquerade" may be of particular interest).
79 6) Edit the file `mhn.defaults' (installed in the nmh `etc' directory).
80 This file contains the default profile entries for the nmh command
81 `mhn' and is created by the script `mhn.defaults.sh'. This script
82 will search a generic path (essentially your $PATH) for programs to
83 handle various content types (for example, xv to display images).
84 You can re-run this script and give it a more tailored path. You may
85 want to re-run this script later if you install new programs to
86 display content. An example of this is:
89 % ./mhn.defaults.sh /usr/local/bin:/usr/X11/bin:/usr/ucb > mhn.defaults
91 and then move `mhn.defaults' into the nmh `etc' directory.
93 The `mhn.defaults.sh' script only searches for a simple set of programs.
94 If you have specialized programs to handle various types, you will need
95 to edit the `mhn.defaults' file manually. The syntax of this file is
96 described in the man page for `mhn', and in section 9.4 of the book
97 "MH & xmh: Email for Users and Programmers", 3rd edition, by Jerry Peek,
98 on the Internet at <http://www.ics.uci.edu/~mh/book/mh/confmhn.htm>.
100 7) Add an optional global mh.profile, if desired. This profile should be
101 placed in the nmh `etc' directory with the name `mh.profile'. This
102 file will be used to construct the initial .mh_profile of a new nmh
103 user, but will not be consulted after that.
105 -----------------------------------------------
106 Compiler options, or using a different compiler
107 -----------------------------------------------
108 By default, configure will use the "gcc" compiler if found. You can use a
109 different compiler, or add unusual options for compiling or linking that
110 the "configure" script does not know about, by either editing the user
111 configuration section of the top level Makefile (after running configure)
112 or giving "configure" initial values for these variables by setting them
113 in the environment. Using a Bourne-compatible shell (such as sh,ksh,zsh),
115 you can do that on the command line like this:
116 CC=c89 CFLAGS=-O2 LIBS=-lposix ./configure
118 Or on systems that have the "env" program, you can do it like this:
119 env CPPFLAGS=-I/usr/local/include LDFLAGS=-s ./configure
121 ----------------------------------------
122 Building nmh on additional architectures
123 ----------------------------------------
124 To build nmh on additional architectures, you can do a "make distclean".
125 This should restore the nmh source distribution back to its original
126 state. You can then configure nmh as above on other architectures in
127 which you wish to build nmh. Or alternatively, you can use a different
128 build directory for each architecture.
130 ---------------------------------
131 Using a different build directory
132 ---------------------------------
133 You can compile the nmh in a different directory from the one containing
134 the source code. Doing so allows you to compile it on more than one
135 architecture at the same time. To do this, you must use a version of
136 "make" that supports the "VPATH" variable, such as GNU "make". "cd" to
137 the directory where you want the object files and executables to go and
138 run the "configure" script. "configure" automatically checks for the
139 source code in the directory that "configure" is in. For example,
141 cd /usr/local/solaris/nmh
142 /usr/local/src/nmh-1.0/configure
145 ---------------------
146 Options for configure
147 ---------------------
148 --prefix=DIR (DEFAULT is /usr/local/nmh)
149 This will change the base prefix for the installation location
150 for the various parts of nmh. Unless overridden, nmh is installed
151 in ${prefix}/bin, ${prefix}/etc, ${prefix}/lib, ${prefix}/man.
153 --bindir=DIR (DEFAULT is ${prefix}/bin)
154 nmh's binaries (show, inc, comp, ...) are installed here.
156 --libdir=DIR (DEFAULT is ${prefix}/lib)
157 nmh's support binaries (post, slocal, mhl, ...) are installed here.
159 --sysconfdir=DIR (DEFAULT is ${prefix}/etc)
160 nmh's config files (mts.conf, mhn.defaults, ...) are installed here.
162 --mandir=DIR (DEFAULT is ${prefix}/man)
163 nmh's man pages are installed here.
166 Enable debugging support.
168 --enable-masquerade[='draft_from mmailid username_extension']
169 If this option is disabled, the mts.conf file will contain the
170 line "masquerade: " (with no value), which may be manually edited
171 later. You may find it convenient to specify a value at
172 configure-time, however, so that each time nmh is reinstalled,
173 the right value will be there. By default, it is enabled.
175 The above usage shows the default, with all three masquerade
176 options being specified. Any subset of the three may be
179 See the mh-tailor(5) man page for full documentation of "masquerade:".
181 --enable-mhe (DEFAULT)
182 Add support for the Emacs front-end `mhe'.
184 --with-editor=EDITOR (DEFAULT is vi)
185 specify the full path of the default editor to use. If this
186 option is not given, then the configuration process will search
187 for the `vi' command and use it as the default. If you wish to
188 specify an interface which is compatible with MH, then use the
189 nmh command `prompter'. If you specify `prompter', then you don't
190 need to give the full pathname.
192 --with-locking=LOCKTYPE (DEFAULT is dot)
193 Specify the locking mechanism when attempting to "inc" or
194 "msgchk" a local mail spool. Valid options are "dot",
195 "fcntl", "flock", and "lockf". Of the four, dot-locking
196 requires no special kernel or filesystem support, and simply
197 creates a file called "FILE.lock" to indicate that "FILE" is
200 In order to be effective, you should contact the site
201 administrator to find out what locking mechanisms other
202 mail delivery and user programs respect. The most common
203 reason not to use dot-locking is if the mail spool directory
204 is not world- or user-writeable, and thus a lock file cannot
207 --with-mts=MTS (DEFAULT is smtp)
208 Specify the default mail transport system you want to use. The two
209 acceptable options are "smtp" (which is the default), and
210 "sendmail". This value will be put into the mts.conf file. You
211 may find it convenient to specify a value at configure-time,
212 however, so that each time nmh is reinstalled, the right value will
215 If you use "smtp", this will enable a direct SMTP (simple mail
216 transport protocol) interface in nmh. When sending mail, instead
217 of passing the message to the mail transport agent, `post' will
218 open a socket connection to the mail port on the machine specified
219 in the `mts.conf' file (default is localhost), and speak SMTP
222 If you use "sendmail", then `post' will send messages by forking a
223 local copy of sendmail. Currently it will still speak SMTP with
224 this local copy of sendmail.
226 If you wish to use a transport agent other than sendmail, you will
227 need to use a `sendmail wrapper'.
229 --with-ndbm=LIB (DEFAULT is to autodetect)
230 --with-ndbmheader=HEADER (DEFAULT is to autodetect)
231 Specify the header file (eg ndbm.h) and library (eg ndbm) to use
232 to compile against the ndbm database library. By default, configure
233 will try various possibilities until it finds one that works; this
234 option only needs to be specified if the autodetection fails or
235 makes the wrong choice.
237 If either of these options is given then the other must also be
240 --with-pager=PAGER (DEFAULT is more)
241 Specify the default pager (file lister) to use. If this option
242 is not given, then the configuration process will search for the
243 command `more' and use it as the default.
247 nmh-workers@nongnu.org