[csw-maintainers] A couple of sendmail issues

[Peter Bonivart]

On Fri, Apr 6, 2012 at 2:01 AM, Jeffery Small <jeff at cjsa.com> wrote:
>
> I just though I would share a couple of issues that I had when upgrading to
> the latest version of sendmail (8.14.5).
>
> Besides the obvious problems due to the relocation of the etc and var files,
> there were changes made to the cf configuration files for solaris that cause
> a number of things to break on my system.
>
> In the previous version of sendmail, the following .mc configuration files
> we referenced:
>
>        OSTYPE(`solaris8')dnl
>        DOMAIN(`solaris-generic')dnl
>
> The new configuration wants to reference OSTYPE(`solaris9csw') in order to
> pick up the new paths, but this file also eliminates the lines:
>
>        ifdef(`UUCP_MAILER_ARGS',, `define(`UUCP_MAILER_ARGS', `uux \
>                                        - -r -a$g $h!rmail ($u)')')
>        FEATURE(`local_lmtp')dnl
>
> I can understand removing the obsolete uucp line, but why the second?  For
> people relying upon that feature, it causes problems and requires the creation
> of a custom ostype file when one was not required previously.
>
> More problematic was the complete elimination of the "domain/solaris-generic"
> file and change to DOMAIN(`generic') which eliminates:
>
>        FEATURE(`use_ct_file')dnl
>        FEATURE(`accept_unqualified_senders')dnl
>        FEATURE(`accept_unresolvable_domains')dnl
>        FEATURE(`relay_entire_domain')dnl
>
> This caused me all sorts of problems until I tracked down the situation and
> created my own customized domain file.
>
> I'm curious why configuration changes which alter program behavior are
> being made to packages that so many people rely upon?  And there is no
> documentation of these changes.  In my case, I configure a program like
> sendmail and then I don't look at it again for years.  When I upgrade a
> package, I expect it to go smoothly.  When some critical component like
> this breaks, despite the notes I keep on the setup for these programs,
> it is still a lot of work to bring myself back up to speed on all of the
> configuration issues.  And when I do a large update involving hundreds of
> packages, the issues are immense.
>
> I mention this, using the example of sendmail, in order raise the subject
> and to see if these sorts of things are being considered as part of the CSW
> release strategy.  However, please don't get me wrong.  I'm still extremely
> appreciative of all the work everyone is doing to keep this project moving
> forward.  I wish I had more free time these days to be involved myself.

Sorry to hear you had a hard time upgrading.

I'm a long time user of this package myself and the old one from 2007
had a bunch of really annoying problems as well such as hanging
indefinitely during installation and messing with the Solaris
Sendmail. My first update of the package didn't change that much, it
was mostly new source, kill some bugs and remove the fiddling with
Solaris Sendmail.

Recently though, I worked with Rafael Ostertag on the configuration
and we tried to do it more like we used it and also allow for easy
configuration of the spamassassin-milter and milter-greylist. It's
during this some things changed that affected you.

However, this should only matter if you're installing from scratch, if
you're doing an upgrade you should have your own mc-file to generate
the cf-file from. The features you're mentioning may very well have
already been custom, they are not part of the source anyway and
usually put directly in the main mc-file if wanted.

Also, as a general comment, it's hard to get a real smooth upgrade
when we change maintainers and it's been years between releases and
CSW policies have changed during that time (like /opt/csw/etc to
/etc/opt/csw). If I maintained only this package maybe I could work
like crazy to include complicated scripts that tested and took care of
everything but sometimes it's better to get an updated package out
there with source that is considered safe and following our current
policies. This package was out for testing for a long time, I received
some feedback, fixed everything and would be glad to work with you to
make it better as well.


/peter