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How a Delivery Agent Is Executed

For safety and efficiency, sendmail undertakes a complicated series of steps to run (execute) a delivery agent.^[287] Some (such as setting the environment) are intended to improve security. Others (such as forking) are required so that sendmail can launch delivery agents. Here, we discuss those steps in the order in which they are taken by sendmail.

^[287]^* For the purpose of this discussion, we will exclude the internal agents (such as IPC) and focus on actual programs (such as /bin/mail).

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