Date:        Fri, 18 Aug 2000 21:30:49 -0500
    From:        "John Maier" <johnam@mail.kemper.org>
    Message-ID:  <01da01c00985$80efe680$8ae301cf@jmaier>

  | It say's dbm in the stock NetBSD 1.4.2

Sendmail can be built to use either or both of dbm and db (hash,btree,...)
database methods.   On IRIX db isn't generally installed, so sendmail would
have been using dbm.   For most uses, db is better (if for no other reason
than there's only one file to open instead of two), so I guess the sendmail
package has dbm disabled and only db installed (though why it doesn't leave
both enabled, and just default use to db format I don't know, the cost is 
small, and for some unusual applications dbm is superior).

  | I'm migrating from an Irix machine running sendmail 8.9.x and it is
  | activly using dbm.

You're going to need to rebuild your database binaries anyway, so it isn't
going to hurt anything if you switch formats.

  | Since I destroyed the sendmail that came on 1.4.2, I'll have to look at it
  | at home and test it out on my home PC.  Maybe the sendmail.cf that came with
  | 1.4.2 is wrong or sendmail is moving in a different direction...

Neither of those really - sendmail just needs a database, and doesn't really
need to care which kind is used (since it needs to run on systems with only
one installed, it has to have code to handle both).   All that happened
between 1.4.2 and -current is that the default method changed (I assume, I
generally compile sendmail from src myself rather than using the pkgsrc
version, so I get the config I prefer, rather that the one someone else
decided was best - of course, that takes more effort).

kre