Modifying the FreeBSD base system sendmail

While I was poking around, tuning the build process for crimson under 5.3, I discovered the NOINET6 flag in make.conf. This ensures that the base sendmail (among other programs) is compiled without IPv6 support. I have to run without IPv6 due to sendmail's interaction with my Alcatel router.

Setting this make flag meant I could dispense with yet another port. Now, how could I rebuild just sendmail on the new 5.3 system? A quick google revealed the answer:

  # cd /usr/src/lib/libsm
  # make obj && make depend && make
  # cd /usr/src/lib/libsmutil
  # make obj && make depend && make
  # cd /usr/src/usr.sbin/sendmail
  # make obj && make depend && make && make install

Once the new base sendmail was installed, I tested the DNS queries, using /usr/sbin/sendmail -bt -d8.8 options. Yep, it worked just fine; DNS "A" queries were being sent by sendmail. I therefore stopped the running sendmail version; pkg_delete'd the sendmail from ports; set the sendmail_enable flag in /etc/rc.conf to "YES", and issued make start in the /etc/mail directory. Now, one less port to process.