[Pkg-exim4-users] fragility of split (was minor comment on exim README.Debian)

[Marc Haber]

On Tue, Jan 03, 2006 at 02:45:52PM -0800, Ross Boylan wrote:
> On Wed, 2005-12-21 at 10:59 +0100, Marc Haber wrote:
> > On Tue, Dec 20, 2005 at 02:33:26PM -0800, Ross Boylan wrote:
> > > On Sat, 2005-12-17 at 16:01 +0100, Marc Haber wrote:
> > > > On Mon, Dec 12, 2005 at 02:03:35PM -0800, Ross Boylan wrote:
> [snip]
> > > First I need to understand exactly what the fragility issue is about.  I
> > > understand that something like a double definition will mess things up;
> > > I'm not sure why that is less likely to happen (or be easier to debug?)
> > > in the unsplit than the split case.
> > 
> > In the unsplit case, the local admin somehow edits the
> > exim4.conf.template (probably by executing update-exim4.conf.template)
> > and is aware that exim might break _now_.
> > 
> > In the split case, the breakage will occur on next daemon reload,
> > which might be later, and noticed by somebody else, who is not even
> > aware that exim's configuration was touched.
> > 
> > > I presume if you run update-exim4.conf.template you have about the same
> > > problems as a user of unsplit,
> > 
> > Yes. But you know that your exim might break _now_, and the breakage
> > is a immediate effect of explicitly touching the config.
> > 
> 
> Would it be possible and desirable for breakage to occur noisily at
> installation time?

At an unknown third-party package's installation time?

> The problem would be to be sure that this operation occurred after
> another package dropped an exim snippet in place.

Yes.

> Hmm, maybe this belongs on the -dev list.

On which -dev list?

Greetings
Marc

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