Bug#251949: "trivial" change to config files

[Marc Haber]

On Fri, Feb 04, 2005 at 02:41:11AM -0500, Andrew Archibald wrote:
> I'm just trying to change the port exim4 delivers to.  It seems debconf 
> can't do it for me, so I went looking for it.  It appears, after reading 
> a number of web pages, including part of the exim4 manual (which is 
> enormous) that I need to add a "port=9025" somewhere in some config 
> file.  I have no idea which config file;

It is always a good idea to get some acquaintance with the software
you're using.

The port number needs to be in the smtp transport which is actually
used for message delivery, and that transport is surprisingly named
remote_smtp_smarthost if you're using a smarthost setup.

The file you need to change is /etc/exim4/exim4.conf.template if you
have chosen the non-split config setup, and
/etc/exim4/conf.d/transport/30_exim4-config_remote_smtp_smarthost if
you have chosen the split config setup. See
/usr/share/doc/exim4-base/README.Debian.gz for a more detailed
description of the config mechanism.

> even if I found somewhere that 
> works, I don't know if it would be clobbered by the next package 
> upgrade, quitely breaking my outgoing mail delivery.

Debian takes great care in not clobbering local conffile changes on
package upgrades. So there is no reason to be afraid of that.

> That's why it should be a debconf option: just allow host:port in the 
> usual way.

That's not the usual way for exim.



> No change to the dialog itself is even necessary; a patch is 
> in the bug tracking system already.

That patch is quite intrusive and probably not suitable for sarge.

ftp://ftp.exim.org/pub/exim/exim4/WishList is the upstream wishlist
which has an entry for specifying the port in a route list ("Specify a
port along with a host in a route_list.") This is the clean way to do
it, and we will probably support this one upstream has implemented
that feature. Due to the upcoming pain during upgrade, we will most
probably refrain from doing any local hacks with the clean fix being
in upstream's pipe.

Greetings
Marc

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