Sendmail conf files

[Matt Churchyard]

----- Matt Churchyard's Original Message -----
> Hello,
> 
> Not sure if this is the right list for this..
> 
> For me the most awkward part of updating a system using freebsd-update is when it comes to merging files. The most common files that pop up seem to be /etc/mail/sendmail.cf & /etc/mail/submit.cf, because these are included in the base distribution and almost certainly change if you actually use Sendmail.

>   Simply don't use the same names.... in /etc/make.conf:

> SENDMAIL_MC = /etc/mail/prodconf.mc

>   and the .cf file(s) will be regenerated.

>YMMV,
>Cheers

I appreciate the response and could use that method on my own systems (although I probably won't need to now as I pretty much always use Postfix). It doesn't really solve the original issue though.

It's not exactly ideal to tell all users they should edit /etc/make.conf just so they can use Sendmail and not have to mess about with cf files on every upgrade. (To be honest I got to the point where I used to just accept the merge even though it left errors in the config file, then went and ran /etc/mail/make to re-create everything. For a user that's easier that trying to merge files in a terminal editor). As I said there is/has been a large effort to make sure users don't have to edit base config files in FreeBSD so that base can be updated without affecting user config or requiring merging. Unless there's some awkward issue I'm not aware of, I don't really see why the two .cf files are included in base in the first place, rather than generated at runtime.

I didn't really post this to fix my own problem, I'm just trying to suggest something that may make upgrades easier for everyone. When running freebsd-update these cf files are some of the very few files that regularly require manual intervention.

Matt

> In most cases this sort of issue has been solved by providing "default files" such as /etc/defaults/rc.conf, and letting the user override this with files they create themselves. Obviously there is a concerted effort to make sure users don't have to edit base files where possible so that they don't get these sort of issues.
> 
> 
> For Sendmail, would it not make sense to remove these 2 .cf files from base and update the sendmail rc.d script to run 'make install' in /etc/mail if they don't exist? It may also be nice if the freebsd.* files were stored somewhere else such as /usr/share/sendmail, as these just causes confusion about which files are actually used if you're new to it.
> 
> 
> Personally I'm on the side that would rather have Sendmail removed entirely and replaced with a simple smtp submission daemon/lda but I think that discussion has already been had.
> 
> 
> -
> 
> Matt Churchyard