Ordinarily, when sendmail logs a message with
the syslog(8) facility, it does so using the
name "sendmail." For example, the
first part of a typical syslog(8) entry might
look like this:
Mar 1 11:30:48 your.host.domain sendmail[18754]: f21IUUxl018753: to=...
The name "sendmail" usually
precedes the process ID number, which is set off in square braces.
Beginning with V8.10 sendmail it is now possible
to change the name used by sendmail when it logs
into a new name of your choice. This is done by using the
-L command-line switch. To illustrate, consider
this line from a typical /etc/init.d/sendmail
system startup file:
/usr/sbin/sendmail -bd -q30m;
At some sites, administrators prefer to run the listening daemon (the
-bd) separately from the queue processing daemon
(the -q30m). At such sites, the system startup
file might be rewritten (in part) like this:
/usr/sbin/sendmail -Lsendmail-listen -bd;
/usr/sbin/sendmail -Lsendmail-queue -q30m;
Here, the listening daemon will log its messages using the name
"sendmail-listen" and the queue
handling daemon will log its messages using the name
"sendmail-queue." A more elaborate
example of a use for the -L switch can be seen in
Section 6.2.
Note that if users other than root or trusted
users use this switch, it will cause sendmail to
syslog(8) a message such as the following:
user uid changed syslog label
