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

[Marc Haber]

On Tue, Jun 21, 2005 at 10:30:21AM -0500, John Goerzen wrote:
> 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.

I cannot reproduce this. /etc/mailname is debconf controlled, and the
packages put whatever you answer to the debconf question in the file.

The host name mentioned in the Received: Header is the primary
hostname, which is - on systems with minimaldns="yes" - directly
derived from hostname --fqdn. What does hostname --fqdn say on your
system?

On system with minimaldns="no", the primary hostname is derived at
runtime by calling the uname() system function. If uname() returns a
single-component name, Exim calls gethostbyname() or getipnodebyname()
in an attempt to acquire q fully qualified host name.

> > > 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."

Can you give an example?

> 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.

The Received Headers are not deducted from any debconf setting.

> > 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.

Which is what we do as well.

> > 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.

Sorry, I didn't know that.

> The
> DEBCOnFrewriteemailaddresses_mailnameDEBCONF bit -- I have no idea what
> that's doing.

That is replaced by update-exim4.conf with a line which enabled
/etc/email-addresses rewriting for sender addresses which are in the
domain mentioned in /etc/mailname. Would be more straightforward here
if we'd use a macro instead of the replacement.

This is, however, documented in the update-exim4.conf man page.

> > 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 begin to be convinced that we have a local configuration issue on
your side here.

Please give concrete examples, debugging dumps, configuration dumps
etc which can be used to substantiate your claim that the exim4
packages are broken.

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

It becomes to be increasingly clear to me that the packages are indeed
fine.

Greetings
Marc

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