Bug#833296: exim4-config: dpkg-reconfigure exim4-config: misleading message

[Marc Haber]

Hi Mauro,

On Wed, Aug 03, 2016 at 09:11:58AM +0200, Mauro Salvini wrote:
> > thanks for your bug report. Superb research, well done.
> 
> thank you, it's my first bug report, glad to hear that is well done :-)

Keep up the good work!

> > @ expands to primary_hostname. Are you manualy setting this in your
> > configuration?
> 
> No, i never set this variable in my configuration.
> /var/lib/exim4/config.autogenerated contains
> 
> .ifdef MAIN_HARDCODE_PRIMARY_HOSTNAME
> primary_hostname = MAIN_HARDCODE_PRIMARY_HOSTNAME
> .endif
> 
> and MAIN_HARDCODE_PRIMARY_HOSTNAME is never set.

Ok, that's the default behavior.

> About this, if during dpkg-reconfigure exim4-config I set "Keep number
> of DNS queries minimal (Dial-on-Demand)" to yes,
> MAIN_HARDCODE_PRIMARY_HOSTNAME becomes defined as myhost.mydomain.local,
> and exim4 delivers mail in the right way.

Yes, that's also how it's intended to work. Maybe this setting is best
for your setup.

> > If uname() returns a single-component name, Exim calls gethostbyname()
> > (or getipnodebyname() where available) in an attempt to acquire a
> > fully qualified host name.
> > 
> > Can you check what your gethostbyname/getipnodebyname returns?

> hostname by uname(): myhostname
> hostname by gethostbyname(): myhostname.mydomain.local

Hm.

What does hostname --fqdn say?

What does exim -bP | grep ^primary_hostname say?

> > I guess that there is something not right with your /etc/hosts which
> > misguides gethostbyname. I have never fully understood what to do with
> > /etc/hosts if one does not have a static IP address, and since all my
> > hosts do have static IP addresses, I have neve had a problem like that.
> > 
> > For starters, I'd try to add an entry with your full host name for
> > the IP address your network interface actually has.
> 
> I tried with a /etc/hosts like this:
> 
> 127.0.0.1 localhost
> 192.168.0.10 myhostname.mydomain.local myhostname
> 
> but behavior is the same.

and 192.168.0.10 is your local IP address on the network?

I do have the trivial 127.0.1.1 myhostname.zugschlus.de myhostname
line in my /etc/hosts and my exim does the right thing, like echo test
| mail root getting correctly qualified to mh at myhostname.zugschlus.de
and root at myhostname.zugschlus.de.

Is your "myhostname.mydomain.local" the literal host name? If so, are
you actually using the .local TLD or is that just obfuscated? Please
consider using a different TLD as .local may cause interference with
avahi (the .local TLD is reserved for use with mDNS).

> (by the way: static IP address means manually-assigned IP address only
> or also DHCP-assigned IP address that is always the same because is
> based on a static map on DHCP server?)

I used the wrong word. I just meant having the actual IP address in
/etc/hosts instead of the 127.0.1.1 placeholder, but that's not the
problem since things work fine on my local system.

> - /etc/mailname set with FQDN, "Other destinations for which mail is
> accepted" during dpkg-reconfigure leaved blank, hostname set as
> myhostname.mydomain.local, it states:
> 08:56:56  3363 local_part=username domain=myhostname.mydomain.local
> 08:56:56  3363 checking domains
> 08:56:56  3363 myhostname.mydomain.local in "@:localhost"? yes (matched
> "@")
> 
> so it right matches "@"

I do have the FQDN set in /etc/mailname. See
https://wiki.debian.org/EtcMailName?highlight=%28mailname%29 for the
current (sad) state of /etc/mailname and its documentation in Debian.

Greetings
Marc

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