Control: severity -1 important Control: tag -1 + confirmed Control: merge 734401 -1
On Tue, 03 Oct 2023 11:43:57 -0400 Jonathan Kamens <j...@kamens.us> wrote:
Package: postfix Version: 3.8.2-1 Severity: normal Note: I am specifically discussing the postfix/destinations debconf setting and the corresponding mydestination setting in /etc/postfix/main.cf, but looking at the code in the postfix config script, I suspect this issue may apply to other settings as well. If I preload the postfix settings I want into the debconf database -- in particular if I set postfix/destinations to "localhost" -- and then call dpkg-reconfigure -fnoninteractive postfix, here's what happens: 1. The config script notices that I have set postfix/destinations. 2. It calls postfix -hx mydestination, which returns the value of mydestination in /etc/postfix/main.cf OR THE DEFAULT VALUE IF THERE IS NO VALUE IN THE FILE. 3. It overwrites the postfix/destinations debconf setting with whatever postconf returned. 4. The postinst script is called and writes the value from postfix/destinations into /etc/postfix/main.cf. As a result, the value that I explicitly put into the debconf setting is lost, AND the wrong, default value that I don't want is explicitly hard-coded into /etc/postfix/main.cf, perpetuating the error. I kind of get the argument that if there is a value explicitly set in /etc/postfix/main.cf it should override the debconf value, but if there's no value in /etc/postfix/main.cf, then I don't think the default value returned by postconf should overwrite an explicitly set debconf value! I think the fix for this would probably be to modify the config script so that it calls postconf -nhx instead of postconf -hx and then only replaces the setting in debconf if postconf returns a non-empty value.
Yes, you're exactly right here. See also https://bugs.debian.org/734401 (filed 10 years ago) which says exactly the same. Thanks, /mjt
