The sendmail ebuild is missing some convenience scripts. I've attached a Makefile that can be installed into /etc/mail that handles rebuilding of the various sendmail CF and DB files.
Created attachment 21902 [details] Makefile to help with usual functions
net-mail, please provide some feedback. Is this a good idea?
I think that it's important for every sendmail user to understand how the configuration is managed in detail so I don't like the idea of putting this directly in /etc/mail. I'd would be nice to document it and add it in share/doc/sendmail and maybe place a README in /etc/mail with info about it. This is a bit redundant considering that we have /usr/share/sendmail-cf/README but that documentation is not exactly for 'beginners'.
(In reply to comment #3) > I think that it's important for every sendmail user to understand how the > configuration is managed in detail so I don't like the idea of putting > this directly in /etc/mail. However pretty much every other distro provides a Makefile so you don't have to understand the cryptic syntax to make hash files and know how to specify includes to m4. I don't understand why you think people should know this to run sendmail?
Our default conf already provides correct includes. I don't find something like 'm4 sendmail.mc > sendmail.cf" to be cryptic tbh. And like it or not this is the sendmail way and it is important to understand it if you want to run it rather than relying on a non-standard Makefile. So I vote for a /etc/mail/README rather than a Makefile (and I'll be happy to write it), if we get 2 votes from other net-mail folks about the Makefile we'll go that way. So net-mail please provide feedback, you already know my vote ;).
I'm with Andrea here. I'm not a sendmail guy. But, as a user, I'd prefer a /etc/mail/README rather than a Makefile i should 'trust'. Cheers, Ferdy
I'm against lcars here, its an (un?)written policy that all our apps should be as friendly as possible after the emerge. I certainly make an effort to provide good working configs for everything I maintain. I don't see why you can't have a README and a makefile, but I think not having the makefile is bad.
We do provide a good working conf, but creating additional helpers (not provided by default app) in substitution for reading and understanding the app documentation is no good imho. (btw I don't ever recall a "as friendly as possible" policy, but let's not start this potentially long discussion ;) ) README could be good, makefile is not imho. Anyway waiting one vote more for deciding the issue ;).
I'm fairly experienced at sendmail CFs but found the "emerge sendmail" lacking. In particular devtools does not exist so I had to muller the Build script in the cf directory. My isp now insists on proxying mail (through exim of all things) so I need to set SMART_HOST. So that my mail has the correct domain name I have to define confDOMAIN_NAME. In the absence of devtools the Build fails so its not quite an out of the box solution.
(In reply to comment #9) > I'm fairly experienced at sendmail CFs but found the "emerge sendmail" lacking. > In particular devtools does not exist so I had to muller the Build script in > the cf directory. My isp now insists on proxying mail (through exim of all > things) so I need to set SMART_HOST. So that my mail has the correct domain > name I have to define confDOMAIN_NAME. In the absence of devtools the Build > fails so its not quite an out of the box solution. And "m4 sendmail.mc > sendmail.cf" doesn't work for you?
(In reply to comment #10) > > And "m4 sendmail.mc > sendmail.cf" doesn't work for you? > Excuse me for late answer. I'm thinking about similiar question. # m4 sendmail.mc > sendmail.cf of course work But. First of all I'm not shure, that the editing of source config file is a good idea. Here I like how it is done on FreeBSD: source sendmail.mc is always untouched. If target file not exists, the 'make' copy this file to $hostname.sendmail.mc (which is to be edited as needed). If source of config ($hostname.sendmail.mc) is changed, 'make' builds the run config ($hostname.sendmail.cf) and 'make install' copies it into sendmail.cf. While handling multiple changes in operate sendmail bases (aliases, virtusertable, genericstable and so on) it's really much easier to run: make make restart instead of: /usr/bin/makemap hash mailertable.db < mailertable /usr/bin/makemap hash genericstable.db < genericstable /usr/bin/makemap hash virtusertable.db < virtusertable and so on for each of changed files /etc/init.d/sendmail restart
Closing. This isn't something Gentoo will provide.