Recompile sendmail to Handle listserv probe bounces in FreeBSD - June 15, 2008
This fix was performed using sendmail 8.13.8, FreeBSD 6.2 and listserv classic 15.5.
L-Soft makes one of the oldest email list management tools there is–listserv. In fact, the word “listserv” is often improperly used to refer to any software that sends email to lists. Similarly to how one might ask for a “Kleenex” or have something “Xeroxed”–listserv has become a generic term for all email list tools whether they have anything to do with L-Soft or not.
If you want to use sendmail as your MTA (or you need to because the L-Soft MTA is not offered on your platform), you will need to recompile sendmail to handle the listserv probe that handles bounces so they can be caught and logged by listserv. There was a time when somebody named Valdis Kletnieks was distributing an actual patch file, but I haven’t seen an updated version floating around the web for a while. He should certainly be given credit for the hard part of this fix. You could use the information below to make your own patch if you would rather manage it that way.
The patch makes a couple small changes to alias.c and then you’re ready to recompile. You can grab a copy of my alias.c file here.
If you’re using FreeBSD, you’ll likely find your alias.c file here:
/usr/src/contrib/sendmail/src/alias.c
After you get your updated alias.c file in place, you’re almost ready to recompile. You need to pass a LISTSERV flag to the c compiler. One way to do this is to add it to the Makefile in /usr/src/usr.sbin/sendmail/Makefile. Find the CFLAGS variable in the Makefile and then add this line:
CFLAGS+= -DLISTSERV
You can see a copy of my altered Makefile here.
Now recompile sendmail:
1) cd /usr/src/lib/libsmutil
2) make depend && make all
3) cd /usr/src/usr.sbin/sendmail
4) make depend && make all install
Restart sendmail and you’re ready to go:
1) cd /etc/mail
2) make stop
3) make start