Re: [exim] converting from debian package to source

On 2022-01-08, Andreas Barth via Exim-users <exim-users@???> wrote:
> * Julian Bradfield via Exim-users (exim-users@???) [220108 15:18]:
>> The pain of dealing with Debian's antiquated versions (4.92) and
>> gratuitous messing around with upstream's configuration (most recent
>> annoyance, not supporting built-in SPF) is prompting me to think about
>> switching to using the primary source.
>
> Debian stable uses 4.94, as well as oldstable-backports.

True. I hadn't thought of installing from backports. (My servers are
on buster.) But I'm not sure whether there's anything in 4.94+ that I
need now, it's just all the warnings I see about 4.92 being very obsolete.

> If you could elaborate on your problems, perhaps there is an fix
> available. Otherwise it's of course trivial to build your own debian
> package, but I never felt the need to do so for exim.

Specifically, I don't like the idea of installing an external tool
spfquery and using the slightly clunky config snippet to use it,
rather than using the built-in spf - I like things in the exim4 manual
to work in my installation!

However, I also don't like fiddling with systems more than necessary -
sysadmin is not my job, it's just what I have to do to make things
work. If I have to go the trouble of building my own Debian package, I
might as well lose all the debian changes and just install exim from
source, which is easy to repeat on all systems I might use.

But there are things I know I might need to watch for: UIDs
(Debian-exim vs exim), for example.

So I suppose the question is: if I drop the master-source-built binary
on top of the Debian one, what can I expect to break? (Tainting is the
main thing I'm aware of as a risk.)

I guess I could just try it and see on a quiet day :)