When using a static IP address, one should not need to adjust the default configuration. Set the hostname to the assigned Internet name and Sendmail will do the rest.

When using a dynamically assigned IP address and a dialup PPP connection to the Internet, one usually has a mailbox on the ISP's mail server. In this example, the ISP's domain is example.net, the user name is user, the hostname is bsd.home, and the ISP has allowed relay.example.net as a mail relay.

In order to retrieve mail from the ISP's mailbox, install a retrieval agent from the Ports Collection. mail/fetchmail is a good choice as it supports many different protocols. Usually, the ISP will provide POP. When using user PPP, email can be automatically fetched when an Internet connection is established with the following entry in /etc/ppp/ppp.linkup:

MYADDR:
!bg su user -c fetchmail

When using Sendmail to deliver mail to non-local accounts, configure Sendmail to process the mail queue as soon as the Internet connection is established. To do this, add this line after the above fetchmail entry in /etc/ppp/ppp.linkup:

  !bg su user -c "sendmail -q"

In this example, there is an account for user on bsd.home. In the home directory of user on bsd.home, create a .fetchmailrc which contains this line:

poll example.net protocol pop3 fetchall pass MySecret

This file should not be readable by anyone except user as it contains the password MySecret.

In order to send mail with the correct from: header, configure Sendmail to use <[email protected]> rather than <[email protected]> and to send all mail via relay.example.net, allowing quicker mail transmission.

The following .mc should suffice:

VERSIONID(`bsd.home.mc version 1.0')
OSTYPE(bsd4.4)dnl
FEATURE(nouucp)dnl
MAILER(local)dnl
MAILER(smtp)dnl
Cwlocalhost
Cwbsd.home
MASQUERADE_AS(`example.net')dnl
FEATURE(allmasquerade)dnl
FEATURE(masquerade_envelope)dnl
FEATURE(nocanonify)dnl
FEATURE(nodns)dnl
define(`SMART_HOST', `relay.example.net')
Dmbsd.home
define(`confDOMAIN_NAME',`bsd.home')dnl
define(`confDELIVERY_MODE',`deferred')dnl

Refer to the previous section for details of how to convert this file into the sendmail.cf format. Do not forget to restart Sendmail after updating sendmail.cf.