Steven Stromer wrote: > Jeff Johnson wrote: > >> On Sep 27, 2007, at 3:28 PM, Steven Stromer wrote: >> >> >>> Hi, >>> >>> This question was asked in comp.mail.sendmail back in 2003, but was >>> never fully resolved. Since it refers to an rpm specific update, I'll >>> ask here. >>> >>> I just updated sendmail using yum, and found a sendmail.cf.rpmnew >>> file. There are numerous changes in this .cf file that seem important, >>> but they will certainly be overwritten the next time the sendmail >>> service restarts and the .mc file is processed. >>> >>> Are we expected to search our existing .mc files, and make them match >>> the newest changes from the sendmail.cf.rpmnew file? I don't even >>> believe that all of the changes could be made to match by revising the >>> .mc file alone. >>> >>> >> Basically yes. >> >> >>> Wouldn't it make so much more sense for both new sendmail.cf.rpmnew >>> and a sendmail.mc.rpmnew files to have been distributed? Apologies if >>> this is a well documented faq that I missed in my search. My hopes are >>> that this is just a packaging error. >>> >>> >> I can try to describe what is happening, but have little to say about >> "sensible" or "packaging flaw". >> >> rpm tries very hard not to clobber locally modified configuration files >> on upgrade. This is done by marking files in packages with %config >> and/or %config(noreplace). >> >> There are two basic resolutions when upgrading modified configuration >> files: >> >> 1) Rename the old file, and replace the file with new content. >> FIles marked "%config" in *.rpm packages will have this behavior. >> A modified file will be renamed (with extension .rpmsave iirc), and >> the file is replace. >> >> 2) Keep the old file exactly as is, but save the new file next to the old. >> FIles marked "%config(noreplace)" in *.rpm packages will have this >> behavior, the new file is installed with extension ".rpmnew". >> >> Its up to the system administrator to merge the new changes. >> >> That explains how the *.rpmnew files arrived. >> >> You've pointed out Yet Another Flaw with the %config handling in rpm. >> The sendmail.cf should be paired with a corresponding sendmail.mc file. >> But when one file is modified and the other is not, then the pairing >> after an >> rpm upgrade is wrong. >> >> 73 de Jeff >> > > > Jeff and Jos, > > Thank you both for replying. I am painfully aware of how rpm handles > non-matching files during the update process, as well as the manual task > that admins are expected to perform when rpmnew, rpmsave, etc. files > appear. In truth, I have scripts configured on a beta server that bring > these to my attention when they appear, so I can prepare for the updates > in advance. All the same, your explanations are extremely clear and useful. > > The fact that in sendmail, the .mc file is used to generate the .cf file > makes this a whole different kind of issue. I have a hard time believing > that providing an updated version of a file that is generated by another > file, and not that other file, could have been intentional. > > Unless I'm wrong, many of the revisions CAN'T be made by editing the .mc > file. We'd have to edit the m4 script, and various other sendmail > configuration files that it accesses. If these source files had all been > updated with the new revisions, and we were left to make only the > changes applicable to the .mc file, that would be fine, but I can see > that this is not the case. > > Any ideas how to work around this? > > Steven > I'm not sure there's an issue here. The .mc file gets processed by m4 and pulls in a bunch of m4 "source" files that then cause a new generated .cf file to be created. Since people rarely modify the .m4 files, these get transparently updated with no generated .rpmnew files. The resultant .cf file, however, may clash with edits you've made. Unless you've not made edits, in which case, "yes", the original .cf file should have been replaced with the new .cf file. Is this not happening? If your .mc file hadn't been modified and neither had your .cf file, then running "make sendmail.cf" will cause your sendmail.cf to be regenerated... and agree with your sendmail.mc file, which should always be the case anyway. -Philip _______________________________________________ Rpm-list mailing list Rpm-list@xxxxxxxxxx https://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/rpm-list
