[lsb-discuss] Possible to get rid of /usr/bin/sendmail requirement in LSB 4.1?

Till Kamppeter till.kamppeter at gmail.com
Fri Jun 12 15:06:50 PDT 2009


Martin Pitt wrote:
> So to avoid all the tech questions/disk usage/etc., would it be okay
> if we put in an /usr/bin/sendmail which looks like
> 
>   #!/bin/sh
>   echo "Please install a real MTA if you want to use sendmail" >&2
>   exit 1
> 

I think this is even a good idea. It tells the calling application by 
the 1 exit status that the system is not able to send e-mail and the 
error message (we hope the calling application passes it to the user by 
displaying it on the screen or putting it into the appropriate log file) 
clearly tells that no MTA is installed on the system.

Applications which will stop working by the error exit of sendmail are 
rare, and are probably server applications where the admin knows what to 
do when getting this error message. Desktop applications or printer 
drivers do not try to send mail notifications with sendmail.

This dummy /usr/bin/sendmail should be in a package by itself, for 
example named sendmail-dummy and not provide the virtual package 
mail-transport-agent. lsb should require sendmail-dummy OR 
mail-transport-agent then.

    Till


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