[Pkg-exim4-users] Questions about configuring

[Marc Haber]

On Wed, Jun 01, 2005 at 01:41:37PM -0700, Ross Boylan wrote:
> On Sun, 2005-05-29 at 08:37 +0200, Marc Haber wrote:
> > Does README.Debian.gz from 4.50-8 help?
> A lot!

Good!

> It has one other problem I omitted from my previous message:
> Benefits of the unsplit configuration approach:
>    * It is more fragile.
> I think you mean "less" fragile :)

Oops. Fixed.

> Also, it might be worth mentioning that it is more like the usual exim
> configuration, and may be easier for some people to grasp.

Done.

> No.  Mostly I'm saying I had trouble finding README.Debian.gz because it
> was not under /usr/share/exim4-config/doc.  However, that seems to have
> changed in 4.50-8.  You're way ahead of me. :)

Good to hear that ;)

> > > Finally, the pattern in which there are DEBCONF vars, DC vars, and dc
> > > vars is also confusing to me, as is the order of which overrides which.
> > 
> > This is complicated, yes :-(  Any idea how to improve docs?
> On close reading, I think the info is all there.  Perhaps a brief
> paragraph on how options get in, and what overrides what (including
> environment variables, options on the init script, etc).

Patch appreciated. We are not going to make sarge, so we have plenty
of time.

> As I understand it, this is the deal:
> Response you give to debconf go to /etc/exim4/update-exim4.conf.conf and
> are stored as dc_xyz.

Yes.

> The administrator can edit the values in that
> file,

Yes.

> and these changes will reset the debconf values (I don't know
> enough about the internals of debconf to know if it stores your answers
> in some other database; I suspect it does.

Debconf has its own database in /var/cache/debconf, but this is not to
be used as a registry. Thus, our code parses
/etc/exim4/update-exim4.conf.conf before presenting any Debconf
questions to the user, so that the data from
/etc/exim4/update-exim4.conf.conf shows up in the Debconf dialogs.

> You are quite clear that
> edits to update-exim4.conf.conf will be permanent, though.)

That is mandated by policy.

> Finally, when update-exim4.conf runs, it substitutes the value of dc_xyz
> for any occurrence of DEBCONFxyxDEBCONF.

Yes.

> It seems there are some dc_ values which govern behavior before
> substitution, the split config variable being an exampl

Yes.

> (the only one?).

CFILEMODE and ue4c_keepcomments fall in that category as well.

Greetings
Marc

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