ssmtp-config fails on step 6

[Kevin Andrew Lipscomb]

On 2021-11-19 18:54, Doug Henderson wrote:
> On Fri, 19 Nov 2021 at 11:00, Kevin Andrew Lipscomb via Cygwin <cygwin@cygwin.com> wrote:
>>
>> ssmtp-config fails silently on step 6 at the first call to /usr/sbin/alternatives.
>>
>> I isolated the alternatives command, added the --verbose switch to it, and ran the result from a bash shell that was launched as Administrator.  The command fails immediately after emitting:
>>
>>     reading /var/lib/alternatives/mta
>>
>> I am also reporting this as a bug in alternatives at bugzilla.redhat.com.
>> --
>> -- Kevin
> 
> Please reply quoting the complete failing command line and output from
> "uname -a".

 From a shell launched (from Windows) as Administrator (which is a user that has fully elevated rights)...

Administrator@WIN-O968FBUMJDS ~
$ /usr/sbin/alternatives --verbose --install /usr/sbin/sendmail mta /usr/sbin/ssmtp.exe 0 \
         --slave /usr/lib/sendmail mta-sendmail /usr/sbin/ssmtp.exe \
         --slave /usr/bin/mailq mta-mailq /usr/sbin/ssmtp.exe \
         --slave /usr/bin/newaliases mta-newaliases /usr/sbin/ssmtp.exe
reading /var/lib/alternatives/mta

Administrator@WIN-O968FBUMJDS ~
$ uname -a
CYGWIN_NT-6.1 WIN-O968FBUMJDS 3.3.2(0.341/5/3) 2021-11-08 16:55 x86_64 Cygwin

> Also please post the bug number or a link to the bug on bugzilla.redhat.com.

I haven't managed to accomplish that yet.  Their system requires me to select a "classification" or "product" that the bug applies to, and it's not clear to me what I should select.


On 2021-11-19 19:07, Andrey Repin wrote:
:
> alternatives is known to make links to nonexistent objects. While this is
> possible on *NIX, you can only link to existing objects on Windows.

In my case, /var/lib/alternatives/mta does exist, and its contents can be seen here:

Administrator@WIN-O968FBUMJDS /var/lib/alternatives
$ cat /var/lib/alternatives/mta
manual
/usr/sbin/sendmail
mta-mailq
/usr/bin/mailq
mta-newaliases
/usr/bin/newaliases
mta-sendmail
/usr/lib/sendmail

/usr/sbin/ssmtp.exe
0
/usr/sbin/ssmtp.exe
/usr/sbin/ssmtp.exe
/usr/sbin/ssmtp.exe

Administrator@WIN-O968FBUMJDS /var/lib/alternatives
$


On 2021-11-19 20:10, Doug Henderson wrote:
:
> and make sure the ownership and permissions are identical to the other
> files, e.g. in my case:
> 
> $ ls -l /var/lib/alternatives
> total 8.0K
> -rw-r--r--+ 1 Admin None  41 Jul 16 11:25 2to3
> -rw-r--r--+ 1 Admin None  52 Jul 16 11:25 gnuplot
> -rw-r--r--+ 1 Admin None 218 Jun 16 17:48 lua
> -rw-r--r--+ 1 Admin None  77 Jun  5 08:46 pip3
> -rw-r--r--+ 1 Admin None  85 Jun  5 08:46 pydoc3
> -rw-r--r--+ 1 Admin None 110 Jun 16 07:34 python
> -rw-r--r--+ 1 Admin None  89 Jun  5 08:46 python3
> -rw-r--r--+ 1 Admin None  59 Jul 16 11:25 python3-config
> 

Here's what I have:

$ ls -Fals /var/lib/alternatives
total 1
0 drwxr-xr-x+ 1 Administrator None   0 Nov 20 11:46 ./
0 drwxr-xr-x+ 1 Administrator None   0 Feb  5  2018 ../
0 -rw-r--r--  1 Administrator None   0 Apr  4  2013 .keep-alternatives
1 -rw-r--r--  1 Administrator None 200 Nov 20 11:46 mta


Thank you both for your help with this.

-- Kevin