gnupg-1.4 has a dependency on virtual/mta, this sucks in a whole mail system I'm trying to build an embedded install and I just need the main gnupg files to sign a few files, not a whole mail server. Problem is that you can't set package.provided for virtual/mta, so it's quite hard to work around this (I don't want to package.provided a fake mailserver package because this then causes problems down the line when we adjust the build to include a mailserver...) There is minimal use of emailing within gnupg - can the dependency please be struck from the ebuild? Thanks Reproducible: Always
The virtual/mta is there as it's one of the ways to connect to a keyserver. See gnupg-2.0.18/keyserver/gpg2keys_mailto.in Alternatively, come up with a suitable USE flag, and we can consider disabling it in the configure script as well. As for your system, you really should have a mail setup of some sort, I strongly suggest using nullmailer for embedded systems (NOT ssmtp), and setting it to discard mails if queuing until there is connectivity is not useful.
Please note that I'm referring to gnupg 1.4? From what I can see, the requirement for sendmail is limited to a single perl script: /usr/libexec/gnupg/gpgkeys_mailto Googling on that turns up a *very* short list of pages, all just listing files in some package. So, it's hard to argue that this is such a well used feature? With regards to creating a USE flag - is it really appropriate to create a new use flag to mask a single perl utility from being installed? If there is some appropriate use flag then happy to send a patch, but this feels like overkill? So, I repeat that emailing is practically non existent within gnupg-1.4 Additionally, surely RDEPENDS are for pieces of functionality which are largely *required* for correct operation? Should *extremely* optional dependencies not be excluded from RDEPEND and at most listed in some WARN at install time? This is true for a whole bunch of other ebuilds - why not this one? (gpgkeys_mailto seems like a convenience script at best, not core functionality?) Please look again at the actual package. Please don't just shoot from the hip on this. (Note I have no opinion on gnupg-2, this is specifically about 1.4)
the mailto functionality has not changed in GPG2, it's still the same as in GPG1. It's used in the very specific case that you specify a keyserver w/ a mailto: URL, in which case when you tell it submit a key, it fires an email. I said a USE flag, because without it, we get the automagic dependency on the existence of the sendmail binary. The USE flag in this case needs to control --enable-mailto to avoid that automagic. The alternative is that we pass an explicit --with-mailprog=/usr/lib/sendmail and then that mailto binary is broken unless the binary is actually installed. I think that the USE flag option provides the best representation of the dependencies.
I would also like to see this issue addressed. As you point out, the dependency is there for a specific use case; for users who know they won't use that functionality, there's no need to install an MTA. (In reply to comment #1) > Alternatively, come up with a suitable USE flag, and we can consider > disabling it in the configure script as well. I am not sure what you're asking for. Do you just want the name of a flag? A patch that implements the entire fix? Something in between? Honestly, I think you're in a much better position to make all of those decisions/modifications. But I'm not sure I understand the request.
Is Robin still monitoring this bug? If not, can someone else please tell me how I can help move it forward?
robbat2: as far as I see in gpg-2, without --enable-mailto, no mta is used... so this dependency can be safely removed keeping current behaviour. We can add USE flag to enable this...
Yes please. Same also for gnupg-1 please.
(In reply to comment #7) > Yes please. Same also for gnupg-1 please. In gnupg-1.4 we explicitly enable this using --enable-mailto.
robbat2: need your response here... This what I think we should do: Add mta USE flag for gnupg to enable --enable-mailto and depend on virtual/mta, default is on for gnupg-1.4, default off for gnupg-2.
gnupg-1.4.13-r1 gnupg-2.0.19-r1 Added mta USE no forced default.
