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

[Ross Boylan]

This is my exim afternoon :)
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?  This could be done either by forcing a reload, or
(maybe) running an update script and checking for errors.

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

Hmm, maybe this belongs on the -dev list.

Ross