Package: postfix Version: 3.8.2-1 Severity: normal Note: I am specifically discussing the postfix/destinations debconf setting and the corresponding mydestination setting in /etc/postfix/main.cf, but looking at the code in the postfix config script, I suspect this issue may apply to other settings as well.
If I preload the postfix settings I want into the debconf database -- in particular if I set postfix/destinations to "localhost" -- and then call dpkg-reconfigure -fnoninteractive postfix, here's what happens: 1. The config script notices that I have set postfix/destinations. 2. It calls postfix -hx mydestination, which returns the value of mydestination in /etc/postfix/main.cf OR THE DEFAULT VALUE IF THERE IS NO VALUE IN THE FILE. 3. It overwrites the postfix/destinations debconf setting with whatever postconf returned. 4. The postinst script is called and writes the value from postfix/destinations into /etc/postfix/main.cf. As a result, the value that I explicitly put into the debconf setting is lost, AND the wrong, default value that I don't want is explicitly hard-coded into /etc/postfix/main.cf, perpetuating the error. I kind of get the argument that if there is a value explicitly set in /etc/postfix/main.cf it should override the debconf value, but if there's no value in /etc/postfix/main.cf, then I don't think the default value returned by postconf should overwrite an explicitly set debconf value! I think the fix for this would probably be to modify the config script so that it calls postconf -nhx instead of postconf -hx and then only replaces the setting in debconf if postconf returns a non-empty value. Thanks, Jonathan Kamens -- System Information: Debian Release: trixie/sid APT prefers stable-updates APT policy: (500, 'stable-updates'), (500, 'stable-security'), (500, 'testing'), (500, 'stable') Architecture: amd64 (x86_64) Kernel: Linux 6.5.0-1-amd64 (SMP w/16 CPU threads; PREEMPT) Kernel taint flags: TAINT_OOT_MODULE, TAINT_UNSIGNED_MODULE Locale: LANG=en_US.UTF-8, LC_CTYPE=en_US.UTF-8 (charmap=UTF-8), LANGUAGE not set Shell: /bin/sh linked to /usr/bin/dash Init: systemd (via /run/systemd/system) LSM: AppArmor: enabled Versions of packages postfix depends on: ii adduser 3.137 ii cpio 2.13+dfsg-7.1 ii debconf [debconf-2.0] 1.5.82 ii dpkg 1.22.0 ii e2fsprogs 1.47.0-2+b1 ii init-system-helpers 1.65.2 ii libc6 2.37-10 ii libdb5.3 5.3.28+dfsg2-2 ii libicu72 72.1-3 ii libnsl2 1.3.0-2 ii libsasl2-2 2.1.28+dfsg1-3 ii libssl3 3.0.11-1 ii netbase 6.4 ii ssl-cert 1.1.2 Versions of packages postfix recommends: ii ca-certificates 20230311 ii python3 3.11.4-5+b1 Versions of packages postfix suggests: ii emacs-gtk [mail-reader] 1:29.1+1-5 ii evolution [mail-reader] 3.50.0-1 ii libsasl2-modules 2.1.28+dfsg1-3 ii mailutils [mail-reader] 1:3.16-1+b1 pn postfix-cdb <none> pn postfix-doc <none> pn postfix-ldap <none> pn postfix-lmdb <none> pn postfix-mta-sts-resolver <none> pn postfix-mysql <none> pn postfix-pcre <none> pn postfix-pgsql <none> pn postfix-sqlite <none> ii procmail 3.22-27 ii systemd-resolved [resolvconf] 254.4-1 ii thunderbird [mail-reader] 1:115.2.2-1 ii ufw 0.36.2-1 -- debconf information excluded
