Configuring Sendmail to use smart host

[Derek Broughton]

Dave M G wrote:

> I'm a web developer and not at all a sendmail administrator. But I find
> I'm trying to set up my local LAMP server so that I can test email
> functions from within my PHP scripts.
> 
> All I want to be able to do is send email from within PHP. My local LAMP
> server is not serving to the web, it's just for local testing.
> 
> But to test email, I need to have SMTP set up so that it can send out to
> the internet.
> 
> After much research and frustration, I've learned to do the following:
> 
> I need to install sendmail, and configure it so that it uses a "smart
> host", which is the SMTP server of my ISP.

A) You don't need Internet access to test that mail can be sent.
B) You don't need Sendmail to have a mail server.

For a full-function email server, it's probably easiest to install Postfix. 
The simplest email server that meets _my_ needs is Masqmail.  For
local-only mail delivery, there are a number of other smtp servers.  Every
one of them will install a binary called "sendmail", to maintain
compatibility with Sendmail.
-- 
derek