Public bug reported:
The security update of bsd-mailx (8.1.2-0.20111106cvs-1ubuntu0.1 on
Ubuntu 12.04) removes bsd-mailx's support for specifying sendmail
options after "--" on the commandline.
This breaks any script that supplies classic sendmail options like -F or
-f on the mail commandline. A prominent example is Bootmail, which calls
mailx in the following way:
print_mail_text | sed -e "s/[^[:print:]]//g" | rootsign | mail -s
"$subject" "$recipients" -- -F "Bootmail" -f "$FROM_MAIL"
Here the options -F and -f are used to set the From: header in the
resulting mail message. This is now broken and results in error messages
like these in /var/log/mail.log (on systems that run Postfix):
Jan 26 16:20:09 example01 postfix/error[31885]: 4351640CB7:
to=<-f...@web01.example.com>, orig_to=<-F>, relay=none, delay=0.16,
delays=0.12/0/0/0.05, dsn=5.1.3, status=bounced (bad address syntax)
Is this change going to stay for good? In that case we need to report a
bug against the Bootmail package (and probably quite a few others) to
change the mail commandline to use the "-a" commandline switch for
specifying additional mail headers.
I find it disconcerting that a security update completely removes
functionality that has been available and expected for many years
without providing a proper compatibility layer. Is this really the way
to do this?
** Affects: bsd-mailx (Ubuntu)
Importance: Undecided
Status: New
** Description changed:
- The security update of bsd-mailx (8.1.2-0.20111106cvs-1ubuntu0.1)
- removes bsd-mailx's support for specifying sendmail options after "--"
- on the commandline.
+ The security update of bsd-mailx (8.1.2-0.20111106cvs-1ubuntu0.1 on
+ Ubuntu 12.04) removes bsd-mailx's support for specifying sendmail
+ options after "--" on the commandline.
This breaks any script that supplies classic sendmail options like -F or
-f on the mail commandline. A prominent example is Bootmail, which calls
mailx in the following way:
print_mail_text | sed -e "s/[^[:print:]]//g" | rootsign | mail -s
"$subject" "$recipients" -- -F "Bootmail" -f "$FROM_MAIL"
Here the options -F and -f are used to set the From: header in the
resulting mail message. This is now broken and results in error messages
like these in /var/log/mail.log (on systems that run Postfix):
Jan 26 16:20:09 example01 postfix/error[31885]: 4351640CB7:
to=<-f...@web01.example.com>, orig_to=<-F>, relay=none, delay=0.16,
delays=0.12/0/0/0.05, dsn=5.1.3, status=bounced (bad address syntax)
Is this change going to stay for good? In that case we need to report a
bug against the Bootmail package (and probably quite a few others) to
change the mail commandline to use the "-a" commandline switch for
specifying additional mail headers.
I find it disconcerting that a security update completely removes
functionality that has been available and expected for many years
without providing a proper compatibility layer. Is this really the way
to do this?
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https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/1414684
Title:
bsd-mailx no longer supports sendmail options, thus breaking existing
scripts (like Bootmail)
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