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Bug 35391 - sendmail Makefile for /etc/mail
Summary: sendmail Makefile for /etc/mail
Status: RESOLVED INVALID
Alias: None
Product: Gentoo Linux
Classification: Unclassified
Component: [OLD] Server (show other bugs)
Hardware: All All
: High major (vote)
Assignee: Net-Mail Packages
URL:
Whiteboard:
Keywords:
Depends on:
Blocks:
 
Reported: 2003-12-08 16:20 UTC by Zeek
Modified: 2011-05-06 18:48 UTC (History)
4 users (show)

See Also:
Package list:
Runtime testing required: ---


Attachments
Makefile to help with usual functions (Makefile,1.07 KB, text/plain)
2003-12-08 16:21 UTC, Zeek
Details

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Description Zeek 2003-12-08 16:20:15 UTC
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.
Comment 1 Zeek 2003-12-08 16:21:22 UTC
Created attachment 21902 [details]
Makefile to help with usual functions
Comment 2 Maurice van der Pot (RETIRED) gentoo-dev 2005-01-08 06:06:12 UTC
net-mail, please provide some feedback. Is this a good idea?
Comment 3 Andrea Barisani (RETIRED) gentoo-dev 2005-05-17 09:13:18 UTC
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'.
Comment 4 Zeek 2005-12-31 19:48:19 UTC
(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?
Comment 5 Andrea Barisani (RETIRED) gentoo-dev 2006-01-01 09:28:18 UTC
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 ;).
Comment 6 Fernando J. Pereda (RETIRED) gentoo-dev 2006-01-09 15:04:06 UTC
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
Comment 7 Benjamin Smee (strerror) (RETIRED) gentoo-dev 2006-01-21 13:25:58 UTC
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.
Comment 8 Andrea Barisani (RETIRED) gentoo-dev 2006-01-26 03:55:33 UTC
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 ;).
Comment 9 Carl G. Pettit 2006-09-24 14:52:39 UTC
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.
Comment 10 Grant Goodyear (RETIRED) gentoo-dev 2006-10-10 10:09:36 UTC
(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?
Comment 11 Sergey S. Starikoff 2010-04-09 09:51:17 UTC
(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
Comment 12 Eray Aslan gentoo-dev 2011-05-06 18:48:58 UTC
Closing.  This isn't something Gentoo will provide.