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

[nicolas vigier]

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.