Bug 37302 – mailutils : missing mail.rc file prevents "mail" from finding /usr/sbin/sendmail

• Product: Gentoo Linux
• Status: RESOLVED FIXED

[Description Matteo Settenvini 2004-01-05 08:06:39 UTC]

I:
1 - Emerged Postfix
2 - Configured it
3 - Tried using "/usr/sbin/sendmail" to send a local mail to another user. It works.
4 - Emerged mailutils
5 - Tried a "mail root"
6 - Wrote something
7 - CTRL+D it

Error returned:
sh: line 1: sendmail:/usr/sbin/sendmail: No such file or directory

cat /var/log/mail/current doesn't say a thing. Sendmail is there, and I believe it has correct permissions. (755)

Expected results:
mail simply works.

[Comment 1 Matteo Settenvini 2004-01-05 09:45:45 UTC]

Ok, I found a simple workaround. The ebuild didn't say anything about the lack of /etc/mail.rc . Still, the error returned by mail was ambiguous, so it wasn't clear the problem. This will fix the problem in an accettable way (if you like it) :

-----------------------------

# Copyright 1999-2003 Gentoo Technologies, Inc.
# Distributed under the terms of the GNU General Public License v2
# $Header: /home/cvsroot/gentoo-x86/net-mail/mailutils/mailutils-0.3.1.ebuild,v 1.2 2003/09/05 09:11:17 msterret Exp $

DESCRIPTION="A useful collection of mail servers, clients, and filters."
HOMEPAGE="http://www.gnu.org/software/mailutils/mailutils.html"
SRC_URI="http://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/mailutils/${P}.tar.bz2"
LICENSE="GPL-2 LGPL-2.1"
SLOT="0"
KEYWORDS="~x86 ~ppc"
IUSE="nls pam mysql gdbm"
DEPEND="!net-mail/mailx
	!net-mail/nmh
	dev-util/guile
	gdbm? ( sys-libs/gdbm )
	mysql? ( dev-db/mysql )
	nls? ( sys-devel/gettext )"

S=${WORKDIR}/${P}

src_compile() {

	use nls || myconf="${myconf} --disable-nls"

	use pam || myconf="${myconf} --disable-pam"

	use mysql && myconf="${myconf} --enable-mysql"

	use gdbm && myconf="${myconf} --with-gdbm"

	./configure \
		--host=${CHOST} \
		--prefix=/usr \
		--sysconfdir=/etc \
		--localstatedir=/var \
		--infodir=/usr/share/info \
		--sharedstatedir=/var \
		--mandir=/usr/share/man \
		--disable-sendmail \
		${myconf} || die "./configure failed"
	emake || die
}

src_install() {
	make DESTDIR=${D} install || die
}

pkg_postinst() {
	echo ""
	ewarn "Please remember to create your own configuration file for mail."
	ewarn "For example, for a basic configuration, run:"
	ewarn ""
	ewarn "echo \"set sendmail=\\\"/usr/sbin/sendmail\\\" ask askcc append dot save crt\" > /etc/mail.rc\n\n"
}

[Comment 2 Tuan Van (RETIRED) 2004-07-10 22:28:18 UTC]

mailutils-0.5 will install /etc/mail.rc. Thanks.