Sendmail conf files

[Chris H]

On Tue, 4 Apr 2017 08:14:18 +0000 Matt Churchyard via freebsd-hackers
<freebsd-hackers at freebsd.org> wrote

> ----- 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
Include it/them in /etc/mergemaster.rc, as IGNORE_FILES?

eg;

IGNORE_FILES='/etc/mail/sendmail.cf /etc/mail/submit.cf /some/other/file'

Just a thought && HTH!

--Chris
> 
> > 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