Bug#834852: exim4-config: update-exim4.conf does NOT update ANYTHING

[Andreas Metzler]

Control: forcemerge 834852 834853
Control: tags 834852 = moreinfo

On 2016-08-19 Bob Goldberg <bobg.hahc at gmail.com> wrote:
> Package: exim4-config
> Version: 4.80-7+deb7u3
> Severity: important
> Tags: upstream
[...]
>    * What led up to the situation?
> needed to update exim4 to shut off "purging environment" warning
>    * What exactly did you do (or not do) that was effective (or
>      ineffective)?
> after changing conf files, ran update-exim4.conf 
>    * What was the outcome of this action?
> discovered that running the update does NOT UPDATE A SINGLE THING.
> discovered that update script EXPRESSLY checks for existence of 
> /etc/exim4/exim4.conf and IF /var/lib/exim4/config.autogenerated is
> EQUAL TO ITSELF!!!!!???  THEN EXIT - un-ceremoniously.

I think you are misreading the script:

# exit immediately if /etc/exim4/exim4.conf exists and -o was not specified
if [ -e /etc/exim4/exim4.conf ] && \
  [ "${UPEX4C_outputfile}" = "${UPEX4C_autoconfigfile}" ] ; then
  exit 0
fi

There is no "equal to itself"-check here. UPEX4C_outputfile is the
output file. It is set to UPEX4C_autoconfigfile by default, but can be
overridden with -o. The tests therefore checks whether -o was passed to
the script.

> man page and docs for this script say NOTHING about specifying -o 
[...]

Quoting manual page update-exim4.conf.8:
-------------------
       -o|--output file
              Write output to file instead of /var/lib/exim4/config.autogener‐
              ated.
[...]
 update-exim4.conf exits silently and does nothing if
 /etc/exim4/exim4.conf exists and -o was not used to direct the output
 to a different file than /var/lib/exim4/config.autogenerated.
-------------------

cu Andreas

-- 
`What a good friend you are to him, Dr. Maturin. His other friends are
so grateful to you.'
`I sew his ears on from time to time, sure'