Re: [exim] Re: Debian exim

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Author: Marc Haber
Date:  
To: exim-users
Subject: Re: [exim] Re: Debian exim
On Fri, 23 Sep 2005 08:31:53 +0530, Suresh Ramasubramanian
<linux@???> wrote:
>On Friday 23 September 2005 00:08, Andreas Metzler wrote:
>> Marc Sherman <msherman@???> wrote:
>
>> Hello,
>> Imho the "default MTA" needs to be quite feature complete. It needs
>> to have a queue, and be able to deliver both remotely (at least to a
>> smarthost using SMTP AUTH) and locally (for disconnected host) and
>
>And it shouldnt be debconfized to the extent it is


How do you suggest the package finds out about its vital configuration
data without which it cannot run?

>I've had absolute newbies compile exim and install it, get a basic config up
>and running in minutes.


Looks like your newbies are different from mine.

>I would suggest a list of canned config files (monolithic files) for those -
>default / no delivery, direct delivery, smarthost + auth etc.


And how would a user choose which one to use? How are the parameters
filled in?

This are the practical problems for the user, not mentioning the
support nightmare of tracking changes through all different versions,
which would probably best be done by moving the split config scheme
from the end system to the development system, losing a lot of
flexibility in the process.

>Most newbies wont want to edit them when they're set.


They would need to configure their domain name, smarthost, rewriting
stuff manually.

>Debconf just doesnt mix well with applications that are monolithic and have
>monolithic config files.


Right. Nor does dpkg. Which is one of the reasons we went the way we
went.

> Now sendmail with its sendmail.mc could lend itself
>to debconfization far easier I guess.


That would probably be the same issue - the Debian .m4 files would be
_very_ different, with the generated config being binary code instead
of an understandable exim.conf.

Greetings
Marc

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