Part 1: Introduction

What's so hard about using sendmail on AIX?

I have tried, time and time again, to get sendmail set up properly on my server in  my basement (that also hosts www.rootvg.net, forums.rootvg.net, www.aixtools.net and download.aixtools.net).

I have long been frustrated that I could not get this working as there are so many tutorials on the web showing how easy sendmail is to setup. (Of course, there are, these days, many saying the opposite - drop sendmail because it is so hard to setup.) Partly - I have been "Blind in one eye and not looking out the other" when I read documentation. But there were also some AIX specific things that make it hard to follow the examples, tutorials or even documention "by rote".

Anyway, I am sticking with sendmail because I have been a user (read consumer and even, once a long time ago, a rule author) since the 80's. This dog is not interested in a new trick.

Up to date and minimal dependencies

After much deliberation - I am commiting myself to provide an up to date Python for AIX - both Python2 (currently Python-2.7.15) and Python3 (currently Python3-3.6.5).

• I strive to have python install with no dependencies. And, make sure it is uninstallable.


• Note: Python3-3.5.5 and Python3-3.4.8 are so-called "final" releases. Only security fixes are expected. See PEP478 and PEP429 respectively).


• To see the AIX specific improvements I am adding - see https://github.com/aixtools/cpython/branches and check out the "aix" branches - e.g., aix.v3.6.5