Re: [Exim] Configuring Exim to Work with SuSE 6.4

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Author: James Greenhalgh
Date:  
To: EXIM users list
Subject: Re: [Exim] Configuring Exim to Work with SuSE 6.4
On 17-May-00 Nigel Metheringham wrote:
>
> nbecker@??? said:
>> Excellent RPMS are available.
>
> As I understand it the rpms don't install/work on Suse and srpm doesn't
> build.
>
> My current rpm set for 3.13+ are at
>       ftp://ftp.exim.org/pub/rpms-for-exim/

>
> They were built on RH 6.1
>
> If they won't install on suse then they should be rebuilt from the
> source rpm. If the source rpm won't work then you'll need to tweak the
> library definitions by copying the Makefile-Linux* files to Local/ and
> modifying them appropriately.


Welcome to the world of rpms. 90% of rpms I've seen are put together by people
using redhat (mistakenly, imho - because it's terrible). Since most linux
distributions put things in different places, and since some of them seem to
rename libraries as they seem fit, rpms aren't as portable as they should be.
Then of course you have the fun of different dists using different named rpm
s for the same version of the same software, so all the dependencies are
broken. It's a lack of standards issue basically, and someone really should
come up with a new package format that can cope with it (perhaps schema files
the installer understands on a per-dist basis?) I ended up with a

/usr/local/idiot-lib

in my ld.so.conf file, which is basically a directory full of symbolic links to
libraries, with kludged names.

> If you still can't get it to build you will need to find someone who
> knows SUSE well [which isn't me - I have installed SUSE twice, and both
> times hated it so much its not survived more than a few hours]


I've installed exim 3.13 under SuSE 6.2 and 6.3 a couple of times - both times
it's been a case of simply untarring it and following the instructions. I
think I changed maybe 3 things, including allowing relaying from localhost, and
setting the local domain - it's really not very difficult. Do it from source
and you wont end up with rpm breaking stuff. I'm afraid I'm a bit of a SuSE
advocate, because the config actually makes sense, and the admin tools actual
ly work ;-)

> If after install it doesn't start correctly, then the init script needs
> modifying to handle whatever way SUSE broke it, and potentially the rpm
> postinstall also needs modifying.


The easiest way to achieve this is to

mv /usr/sbin/sendmail /usr/sbin/sendmail.real (or whatever)
ln -s /wherever_exim_is/bin/exim /usr/sbin/sendmail

Arguably the above two steps should be performed anyway - since some programs
call sendmail directly, and you really want them to be using the same mail
transport as the rest of the machine! I think it suggests it in the INSTALL
file.

Magically the normal SuSE sendmail startup/stop script will work just fine ;-)

james

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E-Mail: James Greenhalgh <james@???>
Date: 18-May-00
Time: 09:16:07

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