[ITP] Sendmail 8.14.9

[Christian Franke]

D. Boland wrote:
> Hi Christian,
>
> Christian Franke wrote:
>> D. Boland wrote:
>>> Hi group,
>>>
>>> I intend to package the Cygwin version of Sendmail, version 8.14.9.
>>>
>>> category: Mail
>>> requires: bash libdb4.8 libgcc1 libopenssl100 libsasl2_3 libwrap0 inetutils-server
>>> m4  procmail tcp_wrappers cyrus-sasl cygrunsrv
>>> sdesc: "The Mail Transfer Agent (mail server)"
>>> ldesc: "General purpose internetwork email routing facility that supports many kinds
>>>    of mail-transfer and delivery methods, including SMTP, SMTPS (STARTTLS), SMTPA
>>>    (AUTH) used for email transport over the internet."
>>>
>>> I've implementented the "alternatives" mechanism, so it can be installed alongside
>>> other Mail Transfer Agents, such as Exim, Postfix or ssmtp.
>> Please handle also the following man pages via "alternatives":
>>
>> mailq(1), newaliases(1), aliases(5), sendmail(8).
>>
>> These definitely will be in conflict with upcoming postfix package. Use
>> e.g. aliases.sendmail.5.gz as the real filename (as done on Fedora).
>> See also https://cygwin.com/ml/cygwin-apps/2014-10/msg00010.html and its
>> attachment.
> Is it possible for the Postfix package to not override the 'sendmail' man page? That
> way one can compare the two programs without having to switch like this:
>
> /usr/sbin/alternatives --set mta /usr/sbin/postfix
> man sendmail
>
> /usr/sbin/alternatives --set mta /usr/libexec/sendmail
> man sendmail

Not needed, because both man pages would be still accessible via 'man 
sendmail.sendmail' and 'man sendmail.postfix'.

The /usr/bin/postfix-config script will link sendmail1.gz -> 
sendmail.postfix.1.gz via alternatives because then the user has then 
*decided* to run postfix as an MTA.
The /etc/postinstall/postfix.sh script will only copy the 
/etc/defaults/etc/postfix files (no alternatives, no user/group 
creation, no service installation).



>> Further suggestions:
>>
>> The following should IMO never be done in a postinstall script:
>> - Creation of user and group accounts.
>> - Installation of services.
>> - Setting alternatives to manual mode (/usr/sbin/alternatives --set ...)
>> Please consider moving the above to the sendmail-config script.
> All steps in postinstall are necessary for running Sendmail.

Note that the above steps are re-done on each package update.

The installation of sendmail does not imply that the user wants to run 
it immediately.

> The sendmail-config
> script contains steps where user-intervention is needed.

An MTA typically cannot be run without some manual local configuration.

Then it IMO does not make sense to do intrusive changes like creation of 
Windows user and group creation early in an unattended postinstall script.

> I'll move the '--set' instruction to the 'sendmail-config' script.
>
> I will provide a pre-remove script that rolls back user-creation and
> service-installation.

In /etc/preremove?

Note that this script is also run on each package update.

>> - Remove formatted man pages in /usr/share/man/cat*, add troff versions
>> in /usr/share/man/man*.
> I will comply, but consider the following. Making man pages smear lines of text
> across the entire width of the screen makes the text unreadable and the layout ugly,
> especially with the omnipresent wide-screen displays nowadays.

I disagree.

These formatted man page *with embedded terminal escape sequences* are 
useless for non-terminal output (printing, conversion to pdf, ...).

According to Cygwin package search, only the libfltk-devel package 
provides formatted man pages, but it also includes the troff versions.

Christian