Bug#315128: exim4-config: Broken handling of /etc/mailname

[John Goerzen]

On Mon, Jun 20, 2005 at 11:30:37PM +0200, Marc Haber wrote:
> On Mon, Jun 20, 2005 at 12:53:12PM -0500, John Goerzen wrote:
> > The file /etc/mailname is used to form the default host part of e-mail
> > addresses in the From line of various programs.  For instance, debchange
> > -i will use it for its changelog messages.  reportbug uses it for bug
> > reports.  Many programs use it.
> 
> Right. Exim4 uses it to qualify the From: (envelope and header).

No, Exim4 uses it to qualify Received.  That's my complaint.  My From is
"complete.org", my Received is "fritz.complete.org", and Exim4 is
putting fritz.complete.org in /etc/mailname.

> > exim4-config is generating a bad /etc/mailname that leads to many
> > troubles.
> 
> What exactly is a bad /etc/mailname? There is a Debconf question
> asking about the mailname, and what is entered there ends up in
> /etc/mailname.

The problem is that "This name won't appear on From: lines ... if you
enable rewriting."

So, in the case above, I enabled rewriting, put fritz.complete.org here,
and complete.org there, because I don't want my Received headers to show
complete.org.

It seems to me that /etc/mailname corresponds to the "rewriting"
question, which is what is doing the real From line.

> Well, we tried to find out what the other MTAs do, with quite
> disappointing success.

Every other MTA I've seen puts the host portion for the From line into
/etc/mailname.

> Take a look in ./conf.d/rewrite/31_exim4-config_rewriting.

That wasn't very helpful; it seems to be mainly relating to
/etc/email-addresses, which I don't use.  The
DEBCOnFrewriteemailaddresses_mailnameDEBCONF bit -- I have no idea what
that's doing.

> there is formal policy requiring us to change. There is too many
> chance for bad breakage during upgrades. We might have been able to
> change in fall 2004, but now, with sarge out of the door and exim4
> being installed on many systems out there, I seriously doubt that the
> packages are going to change their behavior unless absolutely required.

You've got bad system breakage now, with /etc/mailname being wrong
causing havoc for all sorts of things.

I think it is clear already what programs expect to find there.

-- John