Bug#315128: /etc/mailname clarfication

[John Goerzen]

Hi,

There seems to be some descrepancy in how policy about /etc/mailname is
interpreted, and I can see that the policy is vague.

I believe that /etc/mailname should be the host part of the e-mail
address.  Postfix, sendmail, reportbug, and most other programs I've
used treat it that way.

The Exim4 maintainer believes that /etc/mailname should instead be the
hostname as visible in Received lines.

In my case, I want fritz.complete.org to be in Received, and
complete.org in From lines.  Exim4 expects fritz.complete.org to be in
/etc/mailname, and thus messes up all sorts of other programs.

The Exim4 maintainer would like clarficiation in policy about this
issue.

Any thoughts?

On Mon, Jun 20, 2005 at 11:30:37PM +0200, Marc Haber wrote:
> tags #315128 wontfix
> severity #315128 wishlist
> retitle #315128 /etc/mailname issues, raised after release of sarge
> thanks
> 
> Hi,
> 
> 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).
> 
> > 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.
> 
> > I remember submitting a bug about this before, but I can't
> > find it.  Also, exim4-config's behavior is completely at odds with the
> > other MTAs in Debian, such as postfix or sendmail.
> 
> Well, we tried to find out what the other MTAs do, with quite
> disappointing success.
> 
> > On my system, its hostname is fritz.complete.org and the mailname should
> > be complete.org.  The name fritz.complete.org can appear in Received
> > headers and the like, but jgoerzen@fritz.complete.org is NOT a valid
> > e-mail address at all.
> > 
> > After going through exim4's configuration, it set up /etc/mailname to be
> > fritz.complete.org, although it is properly using complete.org in
> > headers it generates itself.  However, this bad /etc/mailname value is
> > leading other programs to use the wrong headers.
> > 
> > Worse, a grep through /etc/exim4 couldn't find an instance of
> > /etc/mailname, so I know exim4 is using it somehow, but I can't figure
> > out where.
> 
> Take a look in ./conf.d/rewrite/31_exim4-config_rewriting.
> Additionally, /usr/sbin/update-exim4.conf uses the file's contents. 
> 
> This being said: Debian policy is more than unclear on how
> /etc/mailname should be handled. We tried to solicit opinions, but
> most of the other MTA maintainers didn't bother to comment in the wiki
> page we created.
> 
> I think that I even asked for comments on debian-devel, pointing to
> the wiki page http://wiki.debian.net/?EtcMailName. You have commented
> back then, but didn't follow up again.
> 
> I am afraid that the exim4 packages are not going to change unless
> 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.
> 
> Please, get Policy amended, /etc/mailname needs to be defined.
> 
> Greetings
> Marc
> 
> -- 
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