path: root/man/qmail-send.9

.TH s/qmail: qmail-send 8
.SH NAME
qmail-send \- deliver mail messages from the queue
.SH SYNOPSIS
.B qmail-send
.SH DESCRIPTION
.B qmail-send
handles messages placed into the outgoing queue by
.BR qmail-queue .
It uses
.B qmail-lspawn
to deliver messages to local recipients and
.B qmail-rspawn
to deliver messages to remote recipients.
If a message is temporarily undeliverable to one or more addresses,
.B qmail-send
leaves it in the queue and tries the addresses again later.

.B qmail-send
prints a readable record of its activities to descriptor 0.
It writes commands to
.BR qmail-lspawn ,
.BR qmail-rspawn ,
and
.B qmail-clean
on descriptors 1, 3, and 5,
and reads responses from descriptors 2, 4, and 6.
Communication with 
.B qmail-todo
is based on decriptors 7 and 8.
.B qmail-send
is responsible for avoiding deadlock.

If
.B qmail-send
receives a TERM signal,
it will exit cleanly, after waiting
(possibly more than a minute)
for current delivery attempts to finish.

If
.B qmail-send
receives an ALRM signal,
it will reschedule every message in the queue for immediate delivery.

.SH "CONTROL FILES"
.B WARNING:
.B qmail-send
reads its control files only when it starts.
If you change the control files,
you must stop and restart
.BR qmail-send .
Exception:
If
.B qmail-send
receives a HUP signal,
it will reread
.IR locals ,
.IR virtualdomains ,
as well as
.IR concurrencylocal ,
.IR concurrencyremote ,
and in addition
.IR queuelifetime .
.TP 5
.I bouncefrom
Bounce username.
Default:
.BR MAILER-DAEMON .
.TP 5
.I bouncehost
Bounce host.
Default:
.IR me ,
if that is supplied;
otherwise the literal name
.BR bouncehost ,
which is probably not what you want.
If a message is permanently undeliverable,
.B qmail-send
sends a
.B single-bounce
notice back to the message's envelope sender.
The notice is
.B From: \fIbouncefrom\fB@\fIbouncehost\fR,
although its envelope sender is empty.
.TP 5
.I bouncemaxbytes
Maximum size (in bytes) of bounce messages.
Bounce messages exceeding this limit will be truncated.
Default is 0; which means no limit.
.TP 5
.I concurrencylocal
Maximum number of simultaneous local delivery attempts.
Default: 10.
If 0, local deliveries will be put on hold.
.I concurrencylocal
is limited at compile time to
SPAWN.
.TP 5
.I concurrencyremote
Maximum number of simultaneous remote delivery attempts.
Default: 20.
If 0, remote deliveries will be put on hold.
.I concurrencyremote
is limited at compile time to
SPAWN.
.TP 5
.I doublebouncehost
Double-bounce host.
Default:
.IR me ,
if that is supplied;
otherwise the literal name
.BR doublebouncehost ,
which is probably not what you want.
.TP 5
.I doublebounceto
User to receive double-bounces.
Default:
.BR postmaster .
If a single-bounce notice is permanently undeliverable,
.B qmail-send
sends a
.B double-bounce
notice to
.IR doublebounceto\fB@\fIdoublebouncehost .
(If that bounces,
.B qmail-send
gives up.)
As a special case, if the first line of
.IR doublebounceto
contains a '@' or an empty line
.B qmail-send 
will discard all double-bounces.
.TP 5
.I envnoathost
Presumed domain name for addresses without @ signs.
Default:
.IR me ,
if that is supplied;
otherwise the literal name
.BR envnoathost ,
which is probably not what you want.
If
.B qmail-send
sees an envelope recipient address without an @ sign,
it appends
.B @\fIenvnoathost\fR.
.TP 5
.I locals
List of domain names that the current host
receives mail for,
one per line.
Default:
.IR me ,
if that is supplied;
otherwise
.B qmail-send
refuses to run.
An address 
.I user@domain
is considered local if
.I domain
is listed in
.IR locals .
.TP 5
.I percenthack
List of domain names where the percent hack is applied.
If
.I domain
is listed in
.IR percenthack ,
any address of the form
.I user%fqdn@domain
is rewritten as
.IR user@fqdn .
.I user
may contain %,
so the percent hack may be applied repeatedly.
.B qmail-send
handles
.I percenthack
before
.IR locals .
.TP 5
.I queuelifetime
Number of seconds
a message can stay in the queue.
Default: 604800 (one week).
After this time expires,
.B qmail-send
will try the message once more,
but it will treat any temporary delivery failures as
permanent failures.
.TP 5
.I virtualdomains
List of virtual users or domains, one per line.
A virtual user has the form
.IR user\fB@\fIdomain\fB:\fIprepend ,
without any extra spaces.
When
.B qmail-send
sees the recipient address
.IR user\fB@\fIdomain ,
it converts it to
.I prepend\fB-\fIuser\fB@\fIdomain
and treats it as local.

A virtual domain has the form
.IR domain\fB:\fIprepend .
It applies to any recipient address at
.IR domain .
For example, if

.EX
     nowhere.mil:joeBREAKfoo
.EE

is in
.IR virtualdomains ,
and a message arrives for
.BR info@nowhere.mil ,
.B qmail-send
will rewrite the recipient address as
.B joeBREAKfoo-info@nowhere.mil
and deliver the message locally.

.I virtualdomains
may contain wildcards:

.EX
     .fax:uucpBREAKfax
     :aliasBREAKcatchall
     .nowhere.mil:joeBREAKfoo-host
.EE

.I virtualdomains
may also contain exceptions:
an empty
.I prepend
means that
.I domain
is not a virtual domain.

.B qmail-send
handles
.I virtualdomains
after
.IR locals :
if a domain is listed in
.IR locals ,
.I virtualdomains
does not apply.
.SH "SEE ALSO"
nice(1),
addresses(5),
envelopes(5),
qmail-control(5),
qmail-log(5),
qmail-todo(8),
qmail-queue(8),
qmail-clean(8),
qmail-lspawn(8),
qmail-rspawn(8)