diff --git a/etc/Makefile b/etc/Makefile
index 8829b7413b67..3a6e8ad858f7 100644
--- a/etc/Makefile
+++ b/etc/Makefile
@@ -42,6 +42,9 @@ BIN2=	netstart pccard_ether rc.suspend rc.resume
 
 MTREE=	BSD.include.dist BSD.local.dist BSD.root.dist BSD.usr.dist \
 	BSD.var.dist BSD.x11.dist BSD.x11-4.dist
+.if !defined(NO_SENDMAIL)
+MTREE+=	BSD.sendmail.dist
+.endif
 NAMEDB= PROTO.localhost.rev PROTO.localhost-v6.rev named.conf named.root \
 	make-localhost
 PPPCNF= ppp.conf
@@ -180,6 +183,9 @@ distrib-dirs:
 		-p ${DESTDIR}/usr/include
 	mtree -deU ${MTREE_FOLLOWS_SYMLINKS} -f ${.CURDIR}/mtree/BSD.include.dist \
 		-p ${DESTDIR}/usr/libdata/perl/5.6.1/mach
+.if !defined(NO_SENDMAIL)
+	mtree -deU ${MTREE_FOLLOWS_SYMLINKS} -f ${.CURDIR}/mtree/BSD.sendmail.dist -p ${DESTDIR}/
+.endif
 	cd ${DESTDIR}/; rm -f ${DESTDIR}/sys; ln -s usr/src/sys sys
 	cd ${DESTDIR}/usr/share/man/en.ISO8859-1; ln -sf ../man* .
 	cd ${DESTDIR}/usr/share/man; \
diff --git a/etc/mtree/BSD.sendmail.dist b/etc/mtree/BSD.sendmail.dist
new file mode 100644
index 000000000000..14fbd6f811dd
--- /dev/null
+++ b/etc/mtree/BSD.sendmail.dist
@@ -0,0 +1,14 @@
+# $FreeBSD$
+#
+# Please see the file src/etc/mtree/README before making changes to this file.
+#
+
+/set type=dir uname=root gname=wheel mode=0755
+.                           nochange
+    var                     nochange
+        spool               nochange
+            clientmqueue    uname=smmsp gname=smmsp mode=0770
+            ..
+        ..
+    ..
+..
diff --git a/etc/mtree/BSD.var.dist b/etc/mtree/BSD.var.dist
index 7fe0f507d88a..c7c66380857b 100644
--- a/etc/mtree/BSD.var.dist
+++ b/etc/mtree/BSD.var.dist
@@ -64,8 +64,6 @@
     rwho            gname=daemon mode=0775
     ..
     spool
-        clientmqueue    uname=smmsp gname=smmsp mode=0770
-        ..
         lock            uname=uucp gname=dialer mode=0775
         ..
 /set gname=daemon