Date: Thu, 18 Apr 2024 18:24:11 +0100 From: Lexi Winter <lexi@le-fay.org> To: arch@freebsd.org Subject: mailwrapper behaviour if mailer.conf can't be opened Message-ID: <ZiFXOzm_Lq65hePj@ilythia.eden.le-fay.org>
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--KN3V09NECx4TDrFV Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Disposition: inline hello, i submitted this change request: https://github.com/freebsd/freebsd-src/pull/969 which was rejected for needing more discussion, so i'd like to discuss that. the current behaviour is that if mailwrapper cannot open mailer.conf for any reason, it calls back to _PATH_DEFAULTMTA. i think this behaviour is bad, because: - if the default MTA has not been configured, it may not be able to deliver mail - if the admin has configured a different MTA, mailwrapper should not fall back to a different MTA because of transient errors - this may hide mail delivery errors from applications by delivering the mail to the wrong MTA instead of returning a failure with my change, mailwrapper will fall back to _PATH_DEFAULTMTA if mailer.conf doesn't exist, which preserves mail functionality if the admin has deleted mailer.conf for some reason. but if mailer.conf can't be opened for any other reason, it will exit with EX_OSERR, returning an error to the application. this was previously discussed on the PR: https://bugs.freebsd.org/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=25218 where the argument was made that it's better to make a 'last ditch' attempt to deliver mail if mailer.conf can't be opened. i disagree with this, for the reasons above, and in addition because modern systems generally do not rely on mail delivery to report serious errors -- they are monitored by an external NMS. --KN3V09NECx4TDrFV Content-Type: application/pgp-signature; name="signature.asc" -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- iQGzBAABCAAdFiEEuwt6MaPcv/+Mo+ftDHqbqZ41x5kFAmYhVzkACgkQDHqbqZ41 x5n7ugv+JfAc7KEA8XQzMMBG5Xif+KeE7WehlO9ewO7BuatETsW5wgtqL74H9NwS W1jt1UqwWxL9myFmw4fD88bLFNxXRZAahBfB5m27pm2FBxXnIqqSSwQb3fpVKhEv jGkiI24YzWyRGmC7Da/rpW6wX0L72EvCxb+QoTzf1pp1dyEmFamPwQa72ErUr05W tI2Teg/q/mbMzuHNGDH2cJ+TI/CIAK1Aa8bTAyFpVqvxUpyrd/Hq420YZvkDG2f6 b6cWmWIAnrJr/y3I+qAc6Yte4hXs/Zp+eUJwc8pPiBdSCOtS8DJWcGr7UYjAbBCl Fi1HcO64yDxqSRx09zLksg2hxZXWxc89MhIBTT5kGIvki7O3sZB+4ypJIUE7Nayp Nktr9I1f2b1pAWd0gLmV+E0QNTsMqjuX3MjGuB5D/5epBmuPV8D5KTlvX6RnnecI gslBZVTyZIp/wJmxKEDk6sp/yTbD+K7jEdcWsZDWNzseJ/uYTEL9DBLAqYTLgFlD S8AipxtS =7/Im -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- --KN3V09NECx4TDrFV--
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