Sendmail

1 definition found

From The Free On-line Dictionary of Computing (27 SEP 03) [foldoc]:

  sendmail
       
           The {BSD} Unix {Message Transfer Agent} supporting
          mail transport via {TCP/IP} using {SMTP}.  Sendmail is
          normally invoked in the {background} via a {Mail User Agent}
          such as the {mail} command.


       
          Sendmail was written by {Eric Allman} at the {University of
          California at Berkeley} during the late 1970s.  He now has his
          own company, {Sendmail Inc.}
       
          Sendmail was one of the first programs to route messages
          between {networks} and today is still the dominant e-mail
          transfer software.  It thrived despite the awkward {ARPAnet}
          transition between {NCP} to TCP protocols in the early 1980s
          and the adoption of the new SMTP Simple Mail Transport
          Protocol, all of which made the business of mail routing a
          complex challenge of backward and forward compatibility for
          several years.  There are now over one million copies of
          Sendmail installed, representing over 75% of all Internet mail
          servers.
       
          Simultaneously with the announcement of the company in
          November 1997, Sendmail 8.9 was launched, featuring new tools
          designed to limit {junk e-mail}.  SendMail 8.9 is still
          distributed as {source code} with the rights to modify and
          distribute.
       
          Latest version: 8.9.1, as of 1998-08-25.
       
          The command
       
          	sendmail -bv ADDRESS
       
          can be used to learn what the local mail system thinks of
          ADDRESS.  You can also talk to the Sendmail {daemon} on a
          remote host FOO with the command
       
          	telnet FOO 25
       
          (1998-08-25)