sendmail, 4th Edition

ControlSocketName

Path to control socket V8.10 and later

Starting with V8.10, the sendmail daemon can accept a few control and status commands via a Unix-based named socket. This interface is primarily intended for use with the tools provided with the commercial version of sendmail, but it can be equally valuable for use with your own home-grown tools. The ControlSocketName option enables this type of controlling interface. It is declared like this:

O ControlSocketName=path                      ← configuration file (V8.10 and
later)
-OControlSocketName=path                      ← command line (V8.10 and later)
define(`confCONTROL_SOCKET_NAME', path)       ← mc configuration (V8.10 and later)

Here, the argument path, of type string, is the full pathname of the Unix named socket. The file named by path need not exist. If it exists, sendmail will remove it and create a new named socket. As a consequence, you should avoid accidently declaring path with an existing file. The file will be silently removed when sendmail starts.

The path needs to be secure. That is, every component of it should be owned by, and writable only by, root or the trusted user specified in the TrustedUser option (TrustedUser on page 1112). Because this interface can be used to shut down the sendmail daemon, the socket requires extra protection. On some operating systems (such as with Solaris and pre-4.4 BSD kernels), it is not enough to make the socket mode 0600. You should also place it in a directory that is root-owned and of mode 0700. On such operating systems, ...