Re: [exim] Debian as a 'Special Case' for Exim

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Author: Marc Haber
Date:  
To: exim-users
Subject: Re: [exim] Debian as a 'Special Case' for Exim
On Fri, 18 Feb 2005 17:47:56 -0500, Greg Folkert
<greg@???> wrote:
>I use the conf.d approach for huge installation. It allows me to split
>config down to a single file per virtual domain for routers.


Every domain has its own router? Why that? Is your environment so
complex that string expansion inside a single router/transport
combination doesn't apply?

>The bigfile (atm) can be generated from those itty bitty config files by
>using a script called "update-exim4.conf" it then does all the
>substitution with values in /etc/exim4/update-exim4.conf.conf.


Actually, /etc/exim4/exim4.conf.template is generated from the small
files in /etc/exim4/conf.d at package build time and on demand on the
target system with update-exim4.conf.template.

The "real" config file, from which exim4 actually runs, is
/var/lib/exim4/config.autogenerated, which is - depending on the
debconf settings - either generated from
/etc/exim4/exim4.conf.template or directly from the small files in
/etc/exim4/conf.d. update-exim4.conf does the right thing whenever an
exim process is going to be started by the Debian scrips.

The new file is generated with a different name and checked by an exim
process before being copied to /var/lib/exim4/config.autogenerated, so
syntax errors are caught before the productive exim is affected.

>using "update-exim4.conf --keepcomments" keeps all the comments in the
>file and the header comments for every file it uses stay there.


update-exim4.conf can also be told to write the actual configuration
file somewhere else which is fine for debugging.

>It is simply EASY to re-order routers without making a typo in the conf
>itself. Just rename the file to a different prefix to re-order it
>(change 380 --> 350).


This will, however, take the file out of dpkg-conffile handling since
that process is file name based.

Greetings
Marc

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