Chapter 15. The sendmail Command Line

The initial behavior of sendmail is determined largely by the command line used to invoke it. The command line can, for example, cause sendmail to use a different configuration file or to rebuild the aliases file rather than deliver mail. The command line can be typed at your keyboard, executed from a boot-time script, or even executed by an MUA when sending mail.

The format of the sendmail command line is:

argv[0] switches recipients

Here, argv[0] is the name used to run sendmail. The switches, if any are present, must always precede the list of recipients. The recipients is a list of zero or more recipient address expressions.