Bug#596193: exim4-config: /etc/aliases ignored in 'mail sent by smarthost; no local mail' and possibly 'mail sent by smarthost; received via SMTP or fetchmail'

[Tim Connors]

Package: exim4-config
Version: 4.72-1
Severity: normal

The contents on /etc/aliases seems to be completely ignored for me
with the current setup ( 'mail sent by smarthost; no local mail' and
possibly 'mail sent by smarthost; received via SMTP or fetchmail') - I
want any mail sent to "root" (eg, the results of root cron jobs),
postmaster, etc to be forwarded to my account twc or twc at
aaocbn.aao.gov.au.  With either of those settings, exim4 -bt gives:

> exim4 -bt root
R: smarthost for root at aaocbn.aao.gov.au
root at aaocbn.aao.gov.au
  router = smarthost, transport = remote_smtp_smarthost
  host aaocbn.aao.gov.au [192.231.166.223] 

('root: twc at aaocbn.aao.gov.au' is ignored, but should be sent
directly.  Otherwise, 'root: twc' should try "twc" then decide that's
unqualified, so qualify it before sending it onto the smarthost)

In most setups, including some corporate setups, but especially home
setups, I can't imagine it be too useful to send the results of root's
crontabs to root at corporation.com or root at isp.com!  It'd be nice if it
obeyed my aliases even when configured for non-local mail delivery!

Note that root at localhost gets redirected, it's just the unqualified
"root" that doesn't, and you could imagine that if "Other destinations
for which mail is accepted" could include a null host, then perhaps
that would get rewritten.

My /etc/aliases file currently is the default setup with all system
accounts being redirected to root, and "root: twc".

-- Package-specific info:
Exim version 4.72 #1 built 03-Jun-2010 17:41:48
Copyright (c) University of Cambridge, 1995 - 2007
Berkeley DB: Berkeley DB 4.8.30: (April  9, 2010)
Support for: crypteq iconv() IPv6 GnuTLS move_frozen_messages DKIM
Lookups: lsearch wildlsearch nwildlsearch iplsearch cdb dbm dbmnz dnsdb dsearch nis nis0 passwd
Authenticators: cram_md5 plaintext
Routers: accept dnslookup ipliteral manualroute queryprogram redirect
Transports: appendfile/maildir/mailstore autoreply lmtp pipe smtp
Fixed never_users: 0
Size of off_t: 8
GnuTLS compile-time version: 2.8.6
GnuTLS runtime version: 2.8.6
Configuration file is /var/lib/exim4/config.autogenerated
# /etc/exim4/update-exim4.conf.conf
#
# Edit this file and /etc/mailname by hand and execute update-exim4.conf
# yourself or use 'dpkg-reconfigure exim4-config'
#
# Please note that this is _not_ a dpkg-conffile and that automatic changes
# to this file might happen. The code handling this will honor your local
# changes, so this is usually fine, but will break local schemes that mess
# around with multiple versions of the file.
#
# update-exim4.conf uses this file to determine variable values to generate
# exim configuration macros for the configuration file.
#
# Most settings found in here do have corresponding questions in the
# Debconf configuration, but not all of them.
#
# This is a Debian specific file

dc_eximconfig_configtype='satellite'
dc_other_hostnames='aatpc2.aao.gov.au'
dc_local_interfaces='127.0.0.1 ; ::1'
dc_readhost='aao.gov.au'
dc_relay_domains=''
dc_minimaldns='false'
dc_relay_nets=''
dc_smarthost='aaocbn.aao.gov.au'
CFILEMODE='644'
dc_use_split_config='false'
dc_hide_mailname='true'
dc_mailname_in_oh='true'
dc_localdelivery='mail_spool'
mailname:aaocbn.aao.gov.au

-- System Information:
Debian Release: squeeze/sid
  APT prefers testing
  APT policy: (500, 'testing'), (500, 'stable')
Architecture: amd64 (x86_64)

Kernel: Linux 2.6.32-5-amd64 (SMP w/8 CPU cores)
Locale: LANG=en_AU.UTF-8, LC_CTYPE=en_AU.UTF-8 (charmap=UTF-8)
Shell: /bin/sh linked to /bin/bash

Versions of packages exim4-config depends on:
ii  adduser                       3.112      add and remove users and groups
ii  debconf [debconf-2.0]         1.5.35     Debian configuration management sy

exim4-config recommends no packages.

exim4-config suggests no packages.

-- Configuration Files:
/etc/exim4/passwd.client [Errno 13] Permission denied: u'/etc/exim4/passwd.client'

-- debconf information:
* exim4/dc_other_hostnames: aatpc2.aao.gov.au
* exim4/dc_eximconfig_configtype: mail sent by smarthost; no local mail
  exim4/no_config: true
  exim4/hide_mailname: true
  exim4/dc_postmaster: twc
* exim4/dc_smarthost: aaocbn.aao.gov.au
  exim4/dc_relay_domains:
  exim4/dc_relay_nets:
* exim4/mailname: aaocbn.aao.gov.au
* exim4/dc_readhost: aao.gov.au
* exim4/use_split_config: false
  exim4/exim4-config-title:
  exim4/dc_localdelivery: mbox format in /var/mail/
* exim4/dc_local_interfaces: 127.0.0.1 ; ::1
* exim4/dc_minimaldns: false