On Fri, 01 Sep 2006 20:41:24 +0800, W B Hacker <wbh@???>
wrote:
>But we struggle on:
>
>- The cited work specifies an 'over-write' to a file that debconf will use to
>apply the new configuration when trigged by a restart...
|$ zgrep over-write /usr/share/doc/exim4-base/README.Debian.gz | wc -l
|0
|$
I do not understand what you mean.
>Your statement, above, implies an immunity to that sequence of events - granted
>specifically to ~/exim4.conf.
Yes, /etc/exim4/exim4.conf is never ever automatically touched, and it
usually does not exist.
>What am I missing w/r ~/exim4.cong-template?
/etc/exim4/exim4.conf.template contains some tokens that need to be
replaced by actual configuration (mostly domain and IP lists) before
the configuration becomes valid. The result of that replace (the
script update-exim4.conf is little more than a big sed expression on
steroids) is placed in /var/lib/exim4/config.autogenerated, which is
the normal configuration file that exim reads:
|# exim -bV | grep '^Configuration'
|Configuration file is /var/lib/exim4/config.autogenerated
|#
>- directly editing ~/exim4.conf-tempate will do nothing until the process that
>*uses* the template to create~/exim4.conf is invoked?
/var/lib/exim4/config.autogenerated is generated automatically by
calling the script update-exim4.conf. The init script
/etc/init.d/exim4 takes care of that before actually invoking the
daemon.
>- if ~/exim4.conf already exists, then said process will (silently?) fail?
>(meaning it is a one-time shot, unless manual rm or mv is done?
/etc/exim4/exim4.conf is never ever touched.
/var/lib/exim4/config.autogenerated is silently overwritten on each
invocation of update-exim4.conf, and carries a prominent warning
automatically added by update-exim4.conf:
|#########
|# WARNING WARNING WARNING
|# WARNING WARNING WARNING
|# WARNING WARNING WARNING
|# WARNING WARNING WARNING
|# WARNING WARNING WARNING
|# This file is generated dynamically from the files in
|# the conf.d/ directory, or from exim4.conf.template respectively.
|# Additional information is read from update-exim4.conf.conf
|# This version of the file was created from the directory /etc/exim4
|# Any changes you make here will be lost.
|# See /usr/share/doc/exim4-base/README.Debian.gz and update-exim4.conf(8)
|# for instructions of customization.
|# WARNING WARNING WARNING
|# WARNING WARNING WARNING
|# WARNING WARNING WARNING
|# WARNING WARNING WARNING
|# WARNING WARNING WARNING
|#########
>- ~/exim4.conf-template and ~/exim4.conf exist outside the realm of whatever
>ELSE Debmagically configures (all/some/no) Exim installations?
/etc/exim4/exim4.conf.template is generated at package build time, but
can be re-generated from the small config snippets we provide by means
of update-exim4.conf.template. This is a process that the normal user
will usually not do until she knows exactly what she is doing.
/etc/exim4/exim4.conf is never ever touched by any script, and does
usually not exist on a normal system.
>Clarify that - and other things - in the docs,
I am actually not sure which kind of clarification is needed. What I
wrote above is mentioned in the docs several times. I am at a loss to
guess why people keep missing that information short of ignoring the
docs in their entirety.
>and you might get more than 4 new
>'seekers' of Debian-specific information in a given month [1].
I suspect that most people do ignore the documentation in the package
but instead use a web search engine to find it, and exim.org is more
popular with the search engines than Debian.org is. It would probably
be a good idea to have Debian's docs referred to from exim.org
Maybe it would also be a good idea to have the relationship of the
files set out graphically.
Greetings
Marc
--
-------------------------------------- !! No courtesy copies, please !! -----
Marc Haber | " Questions are the | Mailadresse im Header
Mannheim, Germany | Beginning of Wisdom " | http://www.zugschlus.de/
Nordisch by Nature | Lt. Worf, TNG "Rightful Heir" | Fon: *49 621 72739834
