From: EuAndreh via Guix-patches via <guix-patches@gnu.org>
To: Efraim Flashner <efraim@flashner.co.il>,
Tobias Geerinckx-Rice <me@tobias.gr>,
59701@debbugs.gnu.org
Subject: [bug#59701] [PATCH] gnu: mailutils: Inform correct path of sendmail.
Date: Thu, 1 Dec 2022 10:15:55 +0000 [thread overview]
Message-ID: <a8582985-9354-0218-9404-d112036afa61@euandre.org> (raw)
In-Reply-To: <fca4318b-399a-6670-9ff4-1cf4fa62ba3f@euandre.org>
Come to think of it, I did try it. It required a significant amount of
patches to the source code itself, to the point where one should prepare
a patchset and send upstream, after refactoring some of the code.
The problem is that the aforementioned search path used is searched at
compile-time, and if no sendmail binary is found, the absolute fallback
path is used instead. So instead of a run-time $PATH lookup, it has a
compile-time /usr/sbin:/usr/lib:/etc lookup, with a /usr/sbin/sendmail
fallback.
Ideally we would like to have:
1. not looking for sendmail binaries at compile-time, and relying on
$PATH instead;
2. not having a fallback absolute path to a fallback binary, and just
get a ENOENT at runtime instead, plus a few more diagnostic messages to
STDERR.
As I progressed in achieving that, I had modification on top of
modification to the build system and the source code, and at some point
I found myself questioning the approach, as it was becoming too fragile
and too custom.
There is no bug registered in GNU Mailutils' bug database, but there is
a thread [0] in its list with people talking about when the exact same
problem was encountered when our friends at Nix packaged mailutils [1].
The suggestion [2] from the maintainer is actually to put a symlink to
the setuid sendmail binary where mailutils expects to find it:
> There's no way to do this currently, except for symlinking the actual
> sendmail-compatible binary (whatever it is in your distro) to the
> predefined path (preferably, to the place defined by _PATH_SENDMAIL
> in your /usr/include/paths.h). In fact, that's what all distros that
> I've ever seen do.
The difference for Guix (and Nix) is that /usr/sbin/ doesn't even exist,
so we use the PATH_SENDMAIL macro to tell mailutils where to find
sendmail, as upstream seems happy with the state of affairs.
[0]: https://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/bug-mailutils/2017-10/msg00004.html
[1]: https://github.com/NixOS/nixpkgs/issues/21008
[2]: https://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/bug-mailutils/2017-10/msg00001.html
next prev parent reply other threads:[~2022-12-01 10:36 UTC|newest]
Thread overview: 12+ messages / expand[flat|nested] mbox.gz Atom feed top
2022-11-29 21:55 [bug#59701] [PATCH] gnu: mailutils: Inform correct path of sendmail EuAndreh via Guix-patches via
2022-11-29 21:57 ` [bug#59701] [PATCH v2] " EuAndreh via Guix-patches via
2022-11-29 22:11 ` [bug#59701] [PATCH] " Tobias Geerinckx-Rice via Guix-patches via
2022-11-29 22:31 ` EuAndreh via Guix-patches via
2022-11-29 22:33 ` EuAndreh via Guix-patches via
2022-12-01 8:26 ` Efraim Flashner
2022-12-01 9:40 ` EuAndreh via Guix-patches via
2022-12-01 10:15 ` EuAndreh via Guix-patches via [this message]
2022-12-01 10:30 ` EuAndreh via Guix-patches via
2022-12-13 6:33 ` 宋文武 via Guix-patches via
2022-12-01 14:19 ` Tobias Geerinckx-Rice via Guix-patches via
2022-12-01 15:25 ` EuAndreh via Guix-patches via
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