[Mageia-dev] [RFC] msec (nail) can't send reports to local users accounts - require an MTA?

Wed Oct 19 01:15:06 CEST 2011

On Tue, 18 Oct 2011, andre999 wrote:
+
+> Balcaen John a écrit :
+>> Le lundi 17 octobre 2011 16:39:14 nicolas vigier a écrit :
+>> [...]
+>>    
+>>> I think that :
+>>>   - changing the default configuration in an update is wrong. If it's
+>>>     better that msec do not send emails by default, I think this change
+>>>     should be done in cauldron only, maybe with some note about this change
+>>>     in the release notes for Mageia 2.
+>>>      
+>> Agree.
+>>    
+>
+> A question : wouldn't changing the default in _both_ cauldron and an update 
+> to mga1 be acceptable ?
+
+I think stable updates should not change defaults.
+
+> Since I really think that sending messages silently to dead.letter, 
+> gradually filling up the disk is a bug.  (When I first discovered the 
+> problem on my system a few years ago, dead.letter used about 1G of disk 
+> space.)
+> That is what happens with the default setting, if an MTA is not installed.
+> At the default settings with an MTA installed, the root mailbox gradually 
+> fills up the disk, if it is not emptied.  And a less informed user is 
+> unlikely to realise this.
+>
+> So it seems to me that as a minimum, the default should be changed to _not_ 
+> send alert emails.  Since the status is visible on the main msec screen, 
+> informed users should have no problem appropriately adjusting the setting.
+>
+> To deal with the potential problem of users who use the email alert feature 
+> having it deactivated by the update, we only need a warning in the update, 
+> as often occurs for other packages.
+
+Updates should not require manual changes. And not everybody read the
+update logs from urpmi. People can expect important changes when upgrading
+to a new version of the distribution, and that's why there is release
+notes to explain the important changes, but not for stable updates.
+
+> Something like "If you use the msec alert emails, please verify that the 
+> alerts are still active."  Note that if the user has ever explicitly set 
+> alerts, they would be still active.
+> This potential problem would exist even if the next update for the user is 
+> mga2.
+> However, if the update is on mga2 (from changes in cauldron), wouldn't the 
+> change in defaults be less visible ?
+>
+>>>   - adding a require or suggest on dma is wrong, especially in an update
+>>> Installing dma with the update will silently replace /usr/sbin/sendmail
+>>> to use dma instead of the previously installed mta, potentially breaking
+>>> email for all programs using the sendmail command.
+>>>      
+>> Hum, if i'm not wrong dma has the lower priority  (5) in the alternatives for
+>> sendmail-command so it should not replace the default mta :
+>> postfix has 30 , sendmail has 10.
+>>
+>>    
+> According to documentation, dma is only active if no other MTA is installed.
+> (I don't know if the priority is what causes this.)
+> So at worst dma would be a (very small) harmless extra install, at best it 
+> would ensure the ability for local delivery.
+
+Then dma could be installed by default on mageia 2, this would fix the
+problem for all programs using the sendmail command, not only msec,
+without adding a require on dma.
+
+