LaMont Jones wrote:
well, except for these lines at the start of /etc/postfix/main.cf:
# see /usr/share/postfix/main.cf.dist for a commented, fuller
# version of this file.
Well, saw this and asked myself what 'fuller' means. I don't expect that
one to be 'fuller', but eventually 'original'.
How about something like
# This file contains a small subset of parameters.
# Replace this file with /usr/share/postfix/main.cf.dist
# if you need more specific settings
?
more debconf questions would only make it worse... As it is, if you
edit main.cf after running debconf, it has to pick up your new answers
as the defaults, lest you change things when you just hit return...
Agreed. But I didn't want it to ask all those questions; I simply ran it
and expected it to somehow give me access to the full file or point out
to me how to get or or even get it for me.
Usability: I used postfix a few times before and know to handle it. On
Debian it took me half an hour to understand just how to get the
original main.cf (actually, I didn't. I copied it from elsewhere in the
end).
The things in /etc/postfix/main.cf are the sum total of things that
debian has changed from the upstream defaults. Everything not mentioned
in the file is the upstream default. That is, if you take the debian
sources, and compile them on a non-debian system, you get the (expected)
upstream behavior.
Which, again, is the wrong approach outright w.r.t. usability. How many
users compile Debian sources and expect upstream behaviour - compared to
the number who install it as binary package and expect it to *work* ?
And being able - eventually - to make a minor change of main.cf - as
very well explained on the postfix sites - in the odd case.
I repeat: In 90 % nothing needs to be changed and postfix runs out of
the box. And if, postfix-sites and google are full of examples which
lines need to be changed to what for fax, maildrop, Maildir, you-name-it.
Except, Debian's main.cf doesn't know about any of these.
And here, at least, debconf is supposed to ask if I want a 'simple'
install or the 'advanced' install (or the 'original' install); as with
so many other packages.
The latter ought to be there for obvious reasons: acknowledge the author
by offering the original version; instead of two tweaked ones.
That probably does belong in our main.cf.
Thanks for the agreement.
Have a look at that preposterous
/usr/share/doc/postfix/README.Debian
I am tempted to drop it here; but the casual reader will find it utmost
incomplete with respect to what we discuss here:
There are some significant differences between the Debian Postfix packages, and
the source from upstream:
except it wouldn't address *any* of the items discussed in here.
Uwe
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