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 the git repository,
16 you will need to run the GNU autotools to regenerate some files.
17 (If your directory already contains a file 'config.h.in' then this
18 has already been done and you do not need to do it.) You can
19 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 If you have obtained nmh in the form of a tar archive and are
28 trying to unpack it with cpio: due to an apparent bug in cpio, it
29 might fail with "Malformed number" error messages. Try another
30 tool to unpack, such as tar or pax.
32 1) From the top-level source directory, run the command
36 This will check the configuration of your OS, and create the
37 include file config.h, as well as the Makefile.
39 The configure script accepts various options. The options of
40 most interest are listed in a section below. To see the list
41 of all available options, you can run
45 2) Look through the user configuration section at the beginning
46 of the generated include file `config.h'. You may
47 want to customize some #defines for your environment, though
48 that is usually unnecessary. Note the configure options below
49 control some of the #defines.
55 Note that if you have [n]mh files in your install directories with
56 the same names as the files being installed, the old ones will get
57 overwritten without any warning. The only directory that isn't
58 true for is the `etc' directory -- in that directory, the previous
59 copy of each <file> will be backed up as <file>.prev if it differs
60 from the newly-installed copy. Watch for any diff output while
61 make is processing that directory to see if you need to merge
62 changes from *.prev files into the new versions.
64 5) Edit the file `mts.conf' (installed in the nmh `etc' directory)
65 and make any necessary changes for the mail transport interface
68 The default `mts.conf' file assumes you retrieve new mail from
69 a local (or NFS mounted) maildrop, and send outgoing mail by
70 injecting the message to a mail transfer agent (such as sendmail)
71 on the local machine via SMTP.
73 If, instead, all your mail sending and receiving occurs on a
74 remote POP/SMTP server, you will need to look at the values of the
75 variables "localname", "pophost", and "servers":
77 a) "localname" defines the hostname that nmh considers local.
78 If not set, then nmh queries your OS for this value. You will
79 want to change this if you wish your e-mail to appear as if it
80 originated on the POP server.
82 b) "pophost" defines the server that runs the POP daemon, and to
83 which `inc' and `msgchk' will always query for new mail.
85 c) "servers" defines the server to which you send outgoing SMTP
86 traffic. See the discussion of the --with-smtpserver configure
89 If you compile with POP support, but don't want to use it exclusively,
90 you can use the `-host' and `-user' options to `inc' and `msgchk'
91 rather than hardcoding pophost in `mts.conf'.
93 Check the `mh-tailor' man page for a list of all the available options
94 for this file ("masquerade" may be of particular interest, though its
95 default value allows the most flexibility. See the discussion of the
96 --enable-masquerade configure option below).
98 6) Edit the file `mhn.defaults' (installed in the nmh `etc' directory).
99 This file contains the default profile entries for the nmh command
100 `mhn' and is created by the script `mhn.defaults.sh'. This script
101 will search a generic path (essentially your $PATH) for programs to
102 handle various content types (for example, xv to display images).
103 You can re-run this script and give it a more tailored path. You may
104 want to re-run this script later if you install new programs to
105 display content. An example of this is:
108 % ./mhn.defaults.sh /usr/local/bin:/usr/X11/bin:/usr/ucb > mhn.defaults
110 and then move `mhn.defaults' into the nmh `etc' directory.
112 The `mhn.defaults.sh' script only searches for a simple set of programs.
113 If you have specialized programs to handle various types, you will need
114 to edit the `mhn.defaults' file manually. The syntax of this file is
115 described in the man page for `mhn', and in section 9.4 of the book
116 "MH & xmh: Email for Users and Programmers", 3rd edition, by Jerry Peek,
117 on the Internet at <http://rand-mh.sourceforge.net/book/mh/confmhn.html>.
121 This takes a bit of time, around one minute on a modern machine,
122 but is highly recommended. If you're going to run it, it must be
123 run after installation. If you want to run the nmh test suite
124 prior to installation, use "make distcheck".
126 8) Add an optional global mh.profile, if desired. This profile should be
127 placed in the nmh `etc' directory with the name `mh.profile'. This
128 file will be used to construct the initial .mh_profile of a new nmh
129 user, but will not be consulted after that.
131 -----------------------------------------------
132 Compiler options, or using a different compiler
133 -----------------------------------------------
135 By default, configure will use the "gcc" compiler if found. You can
136 use a different compiler, or add unusual options for compiling or
137 linking that the "configure" script does not know about, by giving
138 "configure" initial values for these on its command line or in its
139 environment. For example,
141 ./configure CC=c89 CFLAGS=-O2 LIBS=-lposix
143 If you wish to add options that are only used at compile time instead of
144 link time, you can use the CPPFLAGS variable:
146 ./configure CPPFLAGS='-Wextra -Wno-sign-compare'
148 If you want to add to both compile and link flags at build time
149 without putting them in the configuration, you can use the AM_CFLAGS
152 make AM_CFLAGS=--coverage
154 ----------------------------------------
155 Building nmh on additional architectures
156 ----------------------------------------
157 To build nmh on additional architectures, you can do a "make distclean".
158 This should restore the nmh source distribution back to its original
159 state. You can then configure nmh as above on other architectures in
160 which you wish to build nmh. Or alternatively, you can use a different
161 build directory for each architecture.
163 ---------------------------------
164 Using a different build directory
165 ---------------------------------
166 You can compile the nmh in a different directory from the one containing
167 the source code. Doing so allows you to compile it on more than one
168 architecture at the same time. To do this, you must use a version of
169 "make" that supports the "VPATH" variable, such as GNU "make". "cd" to
170 the directory where you want the object files and executables to go and
171 run the "configure" script. "configure" automatically checks for the
172 source code in the directory that "configure" is in. For example,
174 cd /usr/local/solaris/nmh
175 /usr/local/src/nmh-1.5/configure
178 ---------------------
179 Options for configure
180 ---------------------
181 --prefix=DIR (DEFAULT is /usr/local/nmh)
182 This will change the base prefix for the installation location
183 for the various parts of nmh. Unless overridden, nmh is installed
184 in ${prefix}/bin, ${prefix}/etc, ${prefix}/lib, ${prefix}/man.
186 --bindir=DIR (DEFAULT is ${prefix}/bin)
187 nmh's binaries (show, inc, comp, ...) are installed here.
189 --libdir=DIR (DEFAULT is ${prefix}/lib)
190 nmh's support binaries (post, slocal, mhl, ...) are installed here.
192 --sysconfdir=DIR (DEFAULT is ${prefix}/etc)
193 nmh's config files (mts.conf, mhn.defaults, ...) are installed here.
195 --mandir=DIR (DEFAULT is ${prefix}/man)
196 nmh's man pages are installed here.
199 Enable debugging support.
201 --enable-masquerade[='draft_from mmailid username_extension']
202 By default, all three masquerade options are enabled.
204 If this option is disabled, the mts.conf file will contain the
205 line "masquerade: " (with no value), which may be manually edited
206 later. You may find it convenient to specify a value at
207 configure-time, however, so that each time nmh is reinstalled,
208 the right value will be there.
210 See the mh-tailor(5) man page for full documentation of "masquerade:".
212 This option will likely be removed in a future version of nmh.
215 Enable client-side support for pop.
218 Enable client-side support for apop (Authenticated POP).
220 --with-editor=EDITOR (DEFAULT is vi)
221 specify the full path of the default editor to use. If this
222 option is not given, then the configuration process will search
223 for the `vi' command and use it as the default. If you wish to
224 specify an interface which is compatible with MH, then use the
225 nmh command `prompter'. If you specify `prompter', then you don't
226 need to give the full pathname.
229 Specify the location of Hesiod.
232 Specify the location of Kerberos V4 for KPOP support. After
233 running configure, you will need to change the POPSERVICE #define in
234 config.h if you want to use KPOP exclusively (rather than being able
235 to switch between KPOP and normal POP3). See the comments inside
236 config.h for details.
238 --with-locking=LOCKTYPE (DEFAULT is dot)
239 Specify the locking mechanism when attempting to "inc" or
240 "msgchk" a local mail spool. Valid options are "dot",
241 "fcntl", "flock", and "lockf". Of the four, dot-locking
242 requires no special kernel or filesystem support, and simply
243 creates a file called "FILE.lock" to indicate that "FILE" is
246 In order to be effective, you should contact the site
247 administrator to find out what locking mechanisms other
248 mail delivery and user programs respect. The most common
249 reason not to use dot-locking is if the mail spool directory
250 is not world- or user-writeable, and thus a lock file cannot
253 --with-mts=MTS (DEFAULT is smtp)
254 Specify the default mail transport system you want to use. The two
255 acceptable options are "smtp" (which is the default), and
256 "sendmail". This value will be put into the mts.conf file. You
257 may find it convenient to specify a value at configure-time,
258 however, so that each time nmh is reinstalled, the right value will
261 If you use "smtp", this will enable a direct SMTP (simple mail
262 transport protocol) interface in nmh. When sending mail, instead
263 of passing the message to the mail transport agent, `post' will
264 open a socket connection to the mail port on the machine specified
265 in the `mts.conf' file (default is localhost), and speak SMTP
268 If you use "sendmail", then `post' will send messages by forking a
269 local copy of sendmail. Currently it will still speak SMTP with
270 this local copy of sendmail.
272 If you wish to use a transport agent other than sendmail, you will
273 need to use a `sendmail wrapper'.
275 --with-ndbm=LIB (DEFAULT is to autodetect)
276 --with-ndbmheader=HEADER (DEFAULT is to autodetect)
277 Specify the header file (eg ndbm.h) and library (eg ndbm) to use
278 to compile against the ndbm database library. By default, configure
279 will try various possibilities until it finds one that works; this
280 option only needs to be specified if the autodetection fails or
281 makes the wrong choice.
283 If either of these options is given then the other must also be
286 --with-pager=PAGER (DEFAULT is more)
287 Specify the default pager (file lister) to use. If this option
288 is not given, then the configuration process will search for the
289 command `more' and use it as the default.
291 --with-smtpservers='SMTPSERVER1[ SMTPSERVER2...]' (DEFAULT is localhost)
292 If this option is not specified, the mts.conf file will contain
293 the line "servers: localhost", which may be manually edited later.
294 You may find it convenient to specify a value at configure-time,
295 however, so that each time nmh is reinstalled, the right value will be
298 See the mh-tailor(5) man page for full documentation of "servers:".
302 nmh-workers@nongnu.org