RE: [OT] Debian Policy (was Re: [Mimedefang] Re: Quarantine location)
Steffen Kaiser wrote: > However, what would be the way to intelligently > handle sendmail's .m4 conf script, without to disable lots of > functionality? I'm not expert in this sort of thing, but I would have expected for the package to provide a sane default sendmail.mc and submit.mc, along with a Makefile to build the *.cf files, and made the *.mc files conffiles, so changes to them don't get blown away. That way users get a working package immediately after install, but have the ability to alter their *.mc files directly and run make to update the config, and then package upgrades would be handled like any other Debian package...if there is a change in the config then dpkg gives you the option to keep your changes, discard them, view the diffs, etc. Personally I don't understand why /etc/mail/sendmail.conf even exists, if not to try and make things easier for folks. However, exim is the default MTA in Debian (at least in Sarge), so it's my feeling that if you chose to remove exim and install sendmail, you're probably not a newbie and you probably don't need help with configuring sendmail. If you did, you'd just stick with exim, right? > I had no problems with Postgres at all. Ditto. > I do, however, use my own perl version for my own perl programs as > upgrading keeps overwriting any updated modules, to update the perl > package or to install a newer (required) variant of a CPAN module > broke the system or my own (perl) applications running on the server. That shouldn't happen, unless I'm misunderstanding you. Modules that you install via the CPAN shell should go in /usr/local/lib/perl/x.x.x while modules installed via dpkg should be in /usr/lib/perl/x.x.x Package upgrades should not touch /usr/local at all. By default @INC has the /usr/local/lib directory first, so any local packages should take precedence over the dpkg managed ones. I've never had an issue with using Debian's perl package, and I have lots of locally installed/updated modules... ___ Visit http://www.mimedefang.org and http://www.roaringpenguin.com MIMEDefang mailing list MIMEDefang@lists.roaringpenguin.com http://lists.roaringpenguin.com/mailman/listinfo/mimedefang
Re: [OT] Debian Policy (was Re: [Mimedefang] Re: Quarantine location)
On Fri, 26 Aug 2005, David F. Skoll wrote: The sendmail package of Debian is a bit odd, I agree, but an upgrade within the various sarge/testing variants never broke my installation, except that sendmailconfig insists of putting procmail into /etc/mail/smrsh. However, what would be the way to intelligently handle sendmail's .m4 conf script, without to disable lots of functionality? I had no problems with Postgres at all. I do, however, use my own perl version for my own perl programs as upgrading keeps overwriting any updated modules, to update the perl package or to install a newer (required) variant of a CPAN module broke the system or my own (perl) applications running on the server. Bye, -- Steffen Kaiser ___ Visit http://www.mimedefang.org and http://www.roaringpenguin.com MIMEDefang mailing list MIMEDefang@lists.roaringpenguin.com http://lists.roaringpenguin.com/mailman/listinfo/mimedefang
RE: [OT] Debian Policy (was Re: [Mimedefang] Re: Quarantine location)
David F. Skoll wrote: > Kris Deugau wrote: > >> Maybe, maybe not. Debian package maintainers seem to delight in >> "Doing Things Differently" for a lot of packages, but maybe that's >> just my background learning all of the RedHat-isms first. > > Tell me about it! Two of the pieces of software we rely on are > Sendmail and PostgreSQL. The Debian packages for both of those > products are... interesting, shall we say. Convoluted, complicated, > with insane startup scripts, configuration options,... ouch! My head > hurts! Yes, that's been my experience as well. Especially the sendmail package. I took the time to learn sendmail's m4 config mechanism, and in some cases I can even pick apart a .cf file, but Debian expects me to learn yet another config file format for its sendmail package? I can appreciate the maintainer trying to make things simpler for some, but still... I have a little homegrown configuration mechanism I use for versioning and deployment. Basically anytime a new sendmail package is available, I apt-get upgrade, then I use my configuration mechanism to overwrite whatever it does with the config files with my versioned config. So on my servers at least, /etc/mail/sendmail.conf is completely ignored. :) One less thing to learn... > We still use and like Debian around here, but we grumble. :-) Ditto. The oddness with a couple of packages here and there is a small price to pay for the relative sanity of the rest of the distro, when compared with alternatives (IMHO)... ___ Visit http://www.mimedefang.org and http://www.roaringpenguin.com MIMEDefang mailing list MIMEDefang@lists.roaringpenguin.com http://lists.roaringpenguin.com/mailman/listinfo/mimedefang
Re: [OT] Debian Policy (was Re: [Mimedefang] Re: Quarantine location)
Gordon Henderson wrote: > So what I do and just use Debian as a bootstrap mechanism - put sendmail > on hold once it's installed, then just compile up a standard sendmail, > mimedefang, SA, *sql, apache, php, etc. rather than use the packages. Well, we sell Debian-based e-mail filtering appliances, and it would be nightmarish to keep them up-to-date that way. Regards, David ___ Visit http://www.mimedefang.org and http://www.roaringpenguin.com MIMEDefang mailing list MIMEDefang@lists.roaringpenguin.com http://lists.roaringpenguin.com/mailman/listinfo/mimedefang
Re: [OT] Debian Policy (was Re: [Mimedefang] Re: Quarantine location)
On Fri, 26 Aug 2005, David F. Skoll wrote: > Kris Deugau wrote: > > > Maybe, maybe not. Debian package maintainers seem to delight in "Doing > > Things Differently" for a lot of packages, but maybe that's just my > > background learning all of the RedHat-isms first. > > Tell me about it! Two of the pieces of software we rely on are > Sendmail and PostgreSQL. The Debian packages for both of those > products are... interesting, shall we say. Convoluted, complicated, > with insane startup scripts, configuration options,... ouch! My head > hurts! > > We still use and like Debian around here, but we grumble. :-) So what I do and just use Debian as a bootstrap mechanism - put sendmail on hold once it's installed, then just compile up a standard sendmail, mimedefang, SA, *sql, apache, php, etc. rather than use the packages. Bit more to look after, but most of the rest is generally ok - eg. the -dev versions of various libraries, perl modules, etc. and apt-get update will keep the major security stuff up to date (ssh, etc.) (However my background of doing this came from having to maintain a whole raft of different *nix type systems while trying to keep as much similar between boxes to make my life easier. These days it's almost entirely Debian, but old habits die hard) Gordon ___ Visit http://www.mimedefang.org and http://www.roaringpenguin.com MIMEDefang mailing list MIMEDefang@lists.roaringpenguin.com http://lists.roaringpenguin.com/mailman/listinfo/mimedefang
