Bug#481597: dpkg-reconfigure exim4-config does not recognize changed hostname

[Marc Haber]

On Sat, May 24, 2008 at 04:44:27AM +1000, Andrew Vaughan wrote:
> On Saturday 24 May 2008 02:43, Marc Haber wrote:
> > On Sat, May 17, 2008 at 07:34:22PM +1000, Andrew Vaughan wrote:
> > > I changed the hostname on my home server.  I changed /etc/hostname and
> > > /etc/mailname, rebooted and ran dpkg-reconfigure exim4-config thinking
> > > that that should be enough to get exim configured for the new
> > > hostname.
> >
> > Did you also change your /etc/hosts?
> 
> No, but the new hostname is listed as an alias (and has been for 2 years).  
> 
> Experimenting shows that this does seem to the the problem.

Yes, it is. Exim tries to determine its FQDN on startup to be able to
correctly process the @ macro. Without /etc/hosts, the FQDN cannot
be correctly obtained since /etc/hostname only sets the unqualified
host name.

>   Changing the order so that the new hostname is listed first fixes
>   the displayed name in exim4-config question 5.  I'll check whether
>   mail from cron gets delivered.

Does it work?

> Perhaps exim4-config could be changed to automatically add /bin/hostname -a 
> to the list of automatic list of "local domains" in debconf question 5.

That is not necessary. The list of local domains always includes @,
which expands to the local host name on a correctly configured system.
I don't think that it is correct to work around local configuration
errors automatically.

> Note that I consider the fact that exim was unable to notify me about the 
> stuck mail as part of the justification for the important bug severity.

If you want to be notified about stuck messages, use eximstats on a
regular basis and/or install a log management/check package.

Greetings
Marc

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