Re: Ill advised blundering = nasty mess
On Wed, 28 Sep 2011 15:42:58 -0500 Harry rea...@newsguy.com wrote: Joe j...@jretrading.com writes: 1) If you need a mail server but have no previous experience, have heard of sendmail and are unaware of anything else, then yes, I'll join in the recommendations that you pick a different one. It is notoriously the most difficult to configure. The thread has taken a turn away from what OP was about. It wasn't technical help with sendmail itself, but more cleaning up a mess of my own making concerning the installing of the sendmail pkgs. The point there was that if a different mail server would do the job, you could just sweep the mess under the carpet and forget about it. I think we've all done that once or twice, such as reinstalling an OS when it looks quicker and easier than fixing the problem. As I said then, I basically disapprove of people being advised not to do what they're asking for help with, but on the other hand, a beginner may easily get into trouble using a sledgehammer to crack a nut, not realising there are lightweight purpose-built nutcrackers now available. It wasn't clear at the beginning of the thread how experienced you were, hence all the 'don't even think about sendmail' advice. But even when the use of a proper nutcracker is advised, I think the OP should also be helped to get a firmer grip on his sledgehammer, if possible. Someone who has learned to reliably crack nuts with a sledgehammer will have acquired considerable skill with a much more versatile tool than a nutcracker. -- Joe -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-user-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: http://lists.debian.org/20110929112755.62c1c...@jretrading.com
Re: Ill advised blundering = nasty mess
Joe j...@jretrading.com writes: On Wed, 28 Sep 2011 15:42:58 -0500 Harry rea...@newsguy.com wrote: Joe j...@jretrading.com writes: 1) If you need a mail server but have no previous experience, have heard of sendmail and are unaware of anything else, then yes, I'll join in the recommendations that you pick a different one. It is notoriously the most difficult to configure. The thread has taken a turn away from what OP was about. It wasn't technical help with sendmail itself, but more cleaning up a mess of my own making concerning the installing of the sendmail pkgs. The point there was that if a different mail server would do the job, you could just sweep the mess under the carpet and forget about it. I think we've all done that once or twice, such as reinstalling an OS when it looks quicker and easier than fixing the problem. Thanks for the input and effort. -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-user-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: http://lists.debian.org/87lit78uzj@newsguy.com
Ill advised blundering = nasty mess
NOTE: Already posted on unbuntu list... but due to it being something of an urgent matter... and not seeing responses there... I'm posting here too since the tools are all debian tools. - - --=-- - --- - Due to unbridled personal bungling, I've created a nasty mess while installing sendmail. I inadvertantly deleted /etc/init.d/sendmail. Well I thought I'd just reinstall sendmail to re-acquire that file. So uninstalled sendmail... with aptitude but it uninstalled a few other parts of the tools too. There appear to be several packages involved. p sendmail i sendmail-base C sendmail-bin i sendmail-cf As you see, after several attempts at uninstall/reinstall, I now have some installed and some not. The rub comes with sendmail-bin which is the package that contains /etc/init.d/sendmail Any attempt to uninstall it tells me it is not installed, any attempt to install it ends with an error that appears to happen due to that missing file, or the fact that sendmail-bin cannot be --configured. I've tried any number of ways to sneak up on it, but aptitude won't let me. Or more accurately, I don't know how to use aptitude well enough to resolve the problem. I tried apt-get with the --force-yes flag, in the hopes of forcing the install but it didn't work... showed the same dpkg error. , | [...] | /etc/mail/aliases: 4 aliases, longest 10 bytes, 66 bytes total | invoke-rc.d: unknown initscript, /etc/init.d/sendmail not found. | dpkg: error processing sendmail-bin (--configure): | | subprocess installed post-installation script returned error exit | status 100 | | Errors were encountered while processing: | sendmail-bin | E: Sub-process /usr/bin/dpkg returned an error code (1) ` So, can anyone recommend some method to get past this, and get the pkgs fully installed and configured? -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-user-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: http://lists.debian.org/87bou51bp5@newsguy.com
Re: Ill advised blundering = nasty mess
On Wed, Sep 28, 2011 at 12:24:22AM -0500, Harry Putnam wrote: NOTE: Already posted on unbuntu list... but due to it being something of an urgent matter... and not seeing responses there... I'm posting here too since the tools are all debian tools. - - --=-- - --- - Due to unbridled personal bungling, I've created a nasty mess while installing sendmail. I inadvertantly deleted /etc/init.d/sendmail. Well I thought I'd just reinstall sendmail to re-acquire that file. So uninstalled sendmail... with aptitude but it uninstalled a few other parts of the tools too. There appear to be several packages involved. p sendmail i sendmail-base C sendmail-bin i sendmail-cf As you see, after several attempts at uninstall/reinstall, I now have some installed and some not. The rub comes with sendmail-bin which is the package that contains /etc/init.d/sendmail Any attempt to uninstall it tells me it is not installed, any attempt to install it ends with an error that appears to happen due to that missing file, or the fact that sendmail-bin cannot be --configured. I've tried any number of ways to sneak up on it, but aptitude won't let me. Or more accurately, I don't know how to use aptitude well enough to resolve the problem. I tried apt-get with the --force-yes flag, in the hopes of forcing the install but it didn't work... showed the same dpkg error. , | [...] | /etc/mail/aliases: 4 aliases, longest 10 bytes, 66 bytes total | invoke-rc.d: unknown initscript, /etc/init.d/sendmail not found. | dpkg: error processing sendmail-bin (--configure): | | subprocess installed post-installation script returned error exit | status 100 | | Errors were encountered while processing: | sendmail-bin | E: Sub-process /usr/bin/dpkg returned an error code (1) ` So, can anyone recommend some method to get past this, and get the pkgs fully installed and configured? I imagine that, while configuring sendmail, dpkg tries to stop the sendmail process by invoking the init script. The init script isn't there, so it thinks it can't proceed. Try making a quick file that just returns true and then re-install the package (apt-get install --reinstall sendmail-bin). -- Darac Marjal signature.asc Description: Digital signature
Re: Ill advised blundering = nasty mess
On Wed, Sep 28, 2011 at 12:24:22AM -0500, Harry Putnam wrote: I inadvertantly deleted /etc/init.d/sendmail. Well I thought I'd just reinstall sendmail to re-acquire that file. ... Any attempt to uninstall it tells me it is not installed, any attempt to install it ends with an error that appears to happen due to that missing file, or the fact that sendmail-bin cannot be --configured. ... | /etc/mail/aliases: 4 aliases, longest 10 bytes, 66 bytes total | invoke-rc.d: unknown initscript, /etc/init.d/sendmail not found. | dpkg: error processing sendmail-bin (--configure): sudo touch /etc/init.d/sendmail sudo aptitude --purge remove sendmail* However my preferred method: sudo aptitude install postfix Postfix is a drop-in replacement for sendmail that can be configured by mere mortals. -- Carl Fink nitpick...@nitpicking.com Read my blog at blog.nitpicking.com. Reviews! Observations! Stupid mistakes you can correct! -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-user-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: http://lists.debian.org/20110928103946.ga4...@panix.com
Re: Ill advised blundering = nasty mess
NOTE: Already posted on unbuntu list... but due to it being something of an urgent matter... and not seeing responses there... I'm posting here too since the tools are all debian tools. - - --=-- - --- - Due to unbridled personal bungling, I've created a nasty mess while installing sendmail. So, can anyone recommend some method to get past this, and get the pkgs fully installed and configured? Please seriously consider using a different mail server package. Choose among exim, postfix or qmail. All will meet your needs easily, have better security, and are very easy to setup and configure. Yes, this will solve your problem of a messed up install plus add value. Mark -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-user-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: http://lists.debian.org/51bd278d81b0f39215dcbc2fcaeac9a4.squir...@neidorff.com
Re: Ill advised blundering = nasty mess
On 09/28/2011 01:39 PM, Carl Fink wrote: However my preferred method: sudo aptitude install postfix Best: sudo apt-get install exim4 ;-) -- RMA. -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-user-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: http://lists.debian.org/4e831aed.1060...@rktmb.org
Re: Ill advised blundering = nasty mess
Carl Fink c...@finknetwork.com writes: However my preferred method: sudo aptitude install postfix Postfix is a drop-in replacement for sendmail that can be configured by mere mortals. Do you know of a case where postfix was made to use Smarthost smtp.comcast.net? I'd probably drop sendmail after years of use in favor of postfix, but the several times I tried to configure it for comcasts authentication, I failed miserably. I am probably less than mere mortal... -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-user-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: http://lists.debian.org/87aa9ovj02@newsguy.com
Re: Ill advised blundering = nasty mess
Darac Marjal mailingl...@darac.org.uk writes: So, can anyone recommend some method to get past this, and get the pkgs fully installed and configured? I imagine that, while configuring sendmail, dpkg tries to stop the sendmail process by invoking the init script. The init script isn't there, so it thinks it can't proceed. Try making a quick file that just returns true and then re-install the package (apt-get install --reinstall sendmail-bin). Someone on ubuntu list clued me to the --purge command for apt-get and that has allowed me to fully uninstall all the various sendmail related packages and start over I've now got it working... Thanks -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-user-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: http://lists.debian.org/8739fgviwy@newsguy.com
Re: Ill advised blundering = nasty mess
On Wed, 28 Sep 2011 00:24:22 -0500 Harry Putnam harry.p...@gmail.com wrote: Due to unbridled personal bungling, I've created a nasty mess while installing sendmail. I've never been near sendmail, so I can't help directly with the problem. I've seen the other replies, and: 1) If you need a mail server but have no previous experience, have heard of sendmail and are unaware of anything else, then yes, I'll join in the recommendations that you pick a different one. It is notoriously the most difficult to configure. 2) If you have a specific reason to install sendmail, then do it. Answers to IT questions which start well, if I were you I wouldn't try to fix this, I'd do something completely different are sometimes unhelpful, though it is often difficult to guess how much someone knows, and they may be unaware that there is a method which is usually considered better and/or easier. To press ahead, try using dpkg direct, which is more difficult and dangerous than apt, precisely because it doesn't usually stop you shooting off a foot. Sometimes that really is what you want to do. I don't use it often, so start with the man page and figure it out. Forcible, unconditional removal of something is not too difficult, as I recall. But sometimes it doesn't work; your error message comes from dpkg, and that *may* mean it will still stop you, or it may just mean that apt wasn't prepared to kick it hard enough. It happened to me once, oddly enough also with a mail server, exim4. I was upgrading a distribution and was not warned to throw away my old configuration file, which prevented full installation of all parts, and configuration of one of them. Aptitude was helpless, and even dpkg, invoked with extreme prejudice and maximum swearing, wouldn't remove it cleanly. I eventually resorted to reading the file list and hunting them down one by one, with manual deletion, and I could then reinstall from scratch. You may have to do that. If necessary, dpkg -i package.deb will install a .deb without a lot of apt's caution. Use it carefully, when you are sure dependencies are already in place. Best of luck. Sometimes it comes down to that. -- Joe -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-user-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: http://lists.debian.org/20110928160551.5cad1...@jretrading.com
Re: Ill advised blundering = nasty mess
On Wed, Sep 28, 2011 at 09:28:29AM -0500, Harry Putnam wrote: Carl Fink c...@finknetwork.com writes: However my preferred method: sudo aptitude install postfix Postfix is a drop-in replacement for sendmail that can be configured by mere mortals. Do you know of a case where postfix was made to use Smarthost smtp.comcast.net? I'd probably drop sendmail after years of use in favor of postfix, but the several times I tried to configure it for comcasts authentication, I failed miserably. I am probably less than mere mortal... http://lmddgtfy.com/?q=Postfix+Comcast -- Darac Marjal -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-user-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: http://lists.debian.org/20110928162648.ga22...@darac.org.uk
Re: Ill advised blundering = nasty mess
On 28/09/11 11:39, Carl Fink wrote: On Wed, Sep 28, 2011 at 12:24:22AM -0500, Harry Putnam wrote: I inadvertantly deleted /etc/init.d/sendmail. Well I thought I'd just reinstall sendmail to re-acquire that file. ... Any attempt to uninstall it tells me it is not installed, any attempt to install it ends with an error that appears to happen due to that missing file, or the fact that sendmail-bin cannot be --configured. ... | /etc/mail/aliases: 4 aliases, longest 10 bytes, 66 bytes total | invoke-rc.d: unknown initscript, /etc/init.d/sendmail not found. | dpkg: error processing sendmail-bin (--configure): sudo touch /etc/init.d/sendmail sudo aptitude --purge remove sendmail* However my preferred method: sudo aptitude install postfix Postfix is a drop-in replacement for sendmail that can be configured by mere mortals. Unless the machine is a mail server - ie it receives mail and stores it there for access by client programs. Then the very easiest package to install is ssmtp. I have quite a few machines in my house, but only one is the mail server. -- Alan Chandler http://www.chandlerfamily.org.uk -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-user-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: http://lists.debian.org/4e834233.60...@chandlerfamily.org.uk
Re: Ill advised blundering = nasty mess
On Wed, 28 Sep 2011 00:24:22 -0500, Harry wrote in message 87bou51bp5@newsguy.com: NOTE: Already posted on unbuntu list... but due to it being something of an urgent matter... and not seeing responses there... I'm posting here too since the tools are all debian tools. - - --=-- - --- - Due to unbridled personal bungling, I've created a nasty mess while installing sendmail. I inadvertantly deleted /etc/init.d/sendmail. Well I thought I'd just reinstall sendmail to re-acquire that file. So uninstalled sendmail... with aptitude but it uninstalled a few other parts of the tools too. There appear to be several packages involved. p sendmail i sendmail-base C sendmail-bin i sendmail-cf As you see, after several attempts at uninstall/reinstall, I now have some installed and some not. The rub comes with sendmail-bin which is the package that contains /etc/init.d/sendmail Any attempt to uninstall it tells me it is not installed, any attempt to install it ends with an error that appears to happen due to that missing file, or the fact that sendmail-bin cannot be --configured. I've tried any number of ways to sneak up on it, but aptitude won't let me. Or more accurately, I don't know how to use aptitude well enough to resolve the problem. I tried apt-get with the --force-yes flag, in the hopes of forcing the install but it didn't work... showed the same dpkg error. ..try the nuclear dpkg -P --force-XXX options, list'em with --force-help, pile'em --force-* up till you get thru the armor, then reinstall the debris sources and exim or postfix instead of your troublemaker sendmail. -- -- ..med vennlig hilsen = with Kind Regards from Arnt Karlsen ...with a number of polar bear hunters in his ancestry... Scenarios always come in sets of three: best case, worst case, and just in case. -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-user-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: http://lists.debian.org/20110928210647.2ca52...@nb6.lan
Re: Ill advised blundering = nasty mess
Darac Marjal mailingl...@darac.org.uk writes: Do you know of a case where postfix was made to use Smarthost smtp.comcast.net? I'd probably drop sendmail after years of use in favor of postfix, but the several times I tried to configure it for comcasts authentication, I failed miserably. I am probably less than mere mortal... http://lmddgtfy.com/?q=Postfix+Comcast Thanks, lots of people appear to have had serious trouble getting that to work... a good number of the posts there are about dodging the issue all together with some kind php trickery. But my old faithful sendmail took only about 45 minutes to get setup relaying to comcast... once I got my install botchery straightened out. -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-user-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: http://lists.debian.org/8739fgxuzl@reader.local.lan
Re: Ill advised blundering = nasty mess
Joe j...@jretrading.com writes: 1) If you need a mail server but have no previous experience, have heard of sendmail and are unaware of anything else, then yes, I'll join in the recommendations that you pick a different one. It is notoriously the most difficult to configure. The thread has taken a turn away from what OP was about. It wasn't technical help with sendmail itself, but more cleaning up a mess of my own making concerning the installing of the sendmail pkgs. I did bang my head a bit on the authentication but finally realized I was using credentials from a closed account... and of course it was getting rejected ... duh. -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-user-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: http://lists.debian.org/87y5x8wg8d@reader.local.lan
