Added docs/contrib/build_nmh script.

[mmh] / INSTALL

#
# INSTALL -- installation instructions
#

--------------------------------
Installing nmh, guided by script
--------------------------------
For routine installation on popular platforms, the shell script in
docs/contrib/build_nmh can be used to guide you through configuration.
It will then build and optionally (with -i) install in the configured
location.


------------------------
Installing nmh, manually
------------------------
Please read all of the following instructions before you begin
building nmh.

You should check the MACHINES file to see if there are any specific
build instructions for your operating system.  To build nmh, you will
need an ANSI C compiler such as gcc.

0) If you have obtained nmh by checking it out of the git repository,
   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.)

   If you have obtained nmh in the form of a tar archive and are
   trying to unpack it with cpio:  due to an apparent bug in cpio, it
   might fail with "Malformed number" error messages.  Try another
   tool to unpack, such as tar or pax.

1) From the top-level source directory, run the command

   ./configure [options]

   This will check the configuration of your OS, and create the
   include file config.h, as well as the Makefile.

   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

   ./configure --help

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, though
   that is usually unnecessary.  Note the configure options below
   control some of the #defines.

3) make

4) make check

   This takes a bit of time, around one minute on a modern machine,
   but is highly recommended.

5) make install

   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.

6) 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, instead, all your mail sending and receiving occurs on a
   remote POP/SMTP server, you will need to look at the values of the
   variables "localname", "pophost", and "servers":

    a) "localname" defines the hostname that nmh considers local.
       If not set, then nmh queries your OS for this value.  You will
       want to change this if you wish your e-mail to appear as if it
       originated on the POP server.

    b) "pophost" defines the server that runs the POP daemon, and to
       which `inc' and `msgchk' will always query for new mail.

    c) "servers" defines the server to which you send outgoing SMTP
       traffic.  See the discussion of the --with-smtpserver configure
       option below.

   If you don't want to hardcode pophost in `mts.conf', you can use
   the `-host' and `-user' options to `inc' and `msgchk'.

   Check the `mh-tailor' man page for a list of all the available options
   for this file.

7) 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

   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,
   on the Internet at <http://rand-mh.sourceforge.net/book/mh/confmhn.html>.

8) 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.

-----------------------------------------------
Compiler options, or using a different compiler
-----------------------------------------------

By default, configure will use the "gcc" compiler if found.  You can
use a different compiler, or add unusual options for compiling or
linking that the "configure" script does not know about, by giving
"configure" initial values for these on its command line or in its
environment.  For example,

    ./configure CC=c89 CFLAGS=-O2 LIBS=-lposix

If you wish to add options that are only used at compile time instead of
link time, you can use the CPPFLAGS variable:

   ./configure CPPFLAGS='-Wextra -Wno-sign-compare'

If you want to add to both compile and link flags at build time
without putting them in the configuration, you can use the AM_CFLAGS
Makefile macro:

    make AM_CFLAGS=--coverage

----------------------------------------
Building nmh on additional architectures
----------------------------------------
To build nmh on additional architectures, you can do a "make distclean".
This should restore the nmh source distribution back to its original
state.  You can then configure nmh as above on other architectures in
which you wish to build nmh.  Or alternatively, you can use a different
build directory for each architecture.

---------------------------------
Using a different build directory
---------------------------------
You can compile the nmh in a different directory from the one containing
the source code.  Doing so allows you to compile it on more than one
architecture at the same time.  To do this, you must use a version of
"make" that supports the "VPATH" variable, such as GNU "make".  "cd" to
the directory where you want the object files and executables to go and
run the "configure" script.  "configure" automatically checks for the
source code in the directory that "configure" is in.  For example,

    cd /usr/local/solaris/nmh
    /usr/local/src/nmh-1.5/configure
    make

---------------------
Options for configure
---------------------
--prefix=DIR     (DEFAULT is /usr/local/nmh)
     This will change the base prefix for the installation location
     for the various parts of nmh.  Unless overridden, nmh is installed
     in ${prefix}/bin, ${prefix}/etc, ${prefix}/lib, ${prefix}/man.

--bindir=DIR     (DEFAULT is ${prefix}/bin)
     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.

--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.

--enable-debug
     Enable debugging support.

--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-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-mts=MTS   (DEFAULT is smtp)
     Specify the default mail transport system you want to use.  The two
     acceptable options are "smtp" (which is the default), and
     "sendmail".  This value will be put into the mts.conf file.  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.

     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 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-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.

--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.

--with-smtpservers='SMTPSERVER1[ SMTPSERVER2...]'    (DEFAULT is localhost)
     If this option is not specified, the mts.conf file will contain
     the line "servers: localhost", 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.

     See the mh-tailor(5) man page for full documentation of "servers:".

--
The nmh team
nmh-workers@nongnu.org