You
can disable the ability to include all the interface names in the $=w macro on startup. Turning off virtual interfaces
speeds up the startup process. However, if you turn virtual interfaces
off, mail sent to those addresses will bounce back to the sender.
To turn off virtual interfaces, do the following:
Open the sendmail.cf file.
Uncomment the line
DontProbeInterfaces.
By default, virtual interfaces are included in the $=w macro, which is defined in the sendmail.cf file. Sendmail searches for them during startup.
The host name is added to class w for the names of all interfaces unless the DontProbeInterfaces option is set. This is useful for sending mail to
hosts, which have dynamically assigned names.
