[Pkg-exim4-users] Catchall for system users

[Marc Haber]

On Sat, Oct 08, 2005 at 08:48:48AM -0700, Ross Boylan wrote:
> > I think changing the real-* router to ignore system-users might be
> > better. This way the new router could go _after_ the system aliases
> > router, which I think to be a must. - The new router must not override
> > /etc/aliases. Actually I think it should be one of the very last
> > routers, right before local_user.
> 
> That seems like a good way to change the sequencing.  In the current
> scheme could a snippet go after the real-* router, e.g.,
> 310_exim4-config_real_local_excludes:
>     condition = ! ${if or{{<{$local_user_uid}{1000}}
>                          {>{$local_user_uid}{29999}}}}

That strikes me as actually very fragile. If we introduce this, we
should do so in the real_local file itself.

> I'm not very aware of the conditions under which a real* address would
> be used (I think error messages in the default config), but I am aware
> that if mail goes to one of the system users I will probably never see
> it.

It is basically meant to have a means to reach a user even if its
mail setup is somehow screwed. I don't feel quite strongly about this.
Afaics, this was taken verbatim from exim 3, and exim are the only
Debian packages having that kind of exception mechanism.

This might be motivation to remove it entirely, or to do it _right_,
using the methods outlined in this thread, and to get rid of the
constantly broken mechanism of redirection of system accounts in
/etc/aliases as well.

I still believe that this needs discussion on debian-devel. Anybody
wants to start that discussion?

> My immediate concern is with my own systems; clearly the standard for
> making something part of the distribution is higher.

Right. And since we use dpkg-conffiles here, you're free to do your
local changes there without having us object.

> P.S.  I notice that the 300_exim4-config_real_local snippet begins
> ### router/400_exim4-config_system_aliases
> That doesn't look quite right :)

That one was actually already (partially) fixed in svn, and I have not
fully fixed it.

> Also, I recall reading that exim4-config was not dependent on exim4 so
> that the configuration could be setup prior to activating the system.
> However, installing it on my exim3 system kicks out exim3, I think
> because exim4-config conflicts with exim.  It would be great if that
> didn't happen.  (Only relation to previous stuff is that I was trying
> to look at the exim4 configuration on my exim3 machine to respond to
> the earlier points.)

The package dependencies have been a mess to work out. I'd like to
avoid changing them in the next few million years unless somebody
suggesting a change gives sufficient proof that the change has been
checked and tested to hell and back.

Greetings
Marc

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