Hi all! This is just a description of what I did to upgrade from exim3 to exim4. I hope it's useful to someone.
I have an MX backup, so the first thing I did was to disable port 25 on my router. The logic was that this way, I could test my mail server internally without risking a loss of mail -- the MX backup would hold it until I enabled the port again. The router is a Linksys, and I found that, while enabling ports works as expected, disabling ports through the web interface didn't work. I had to disable the port through the web interface, *then* run down to the basement and manually reboot the thing. I couldn't find a reboot option on the web interface. Very annoying. I tested whether the port was actually blocked by telnetting to port 25 from an external machine. I definitely suggest doing so -- it's how I figured out the above bug. Okay, so, next, I acquired the exim_convert4r4 script by copying it from another machine, where exim4 was already installed. This script attempts to convert your existing exim3 config file to a monolithic exim4 config. I have a fairly simple configuration -- the only vaguely interesting part is enabling the "-*" suffix for my users. Also, I have a rule in there sending all mail addressed to unknown users to a single account. I ran the script and read over the output. As near as I could tell, everything looked fine -- though I doubt I would have noticed if it hadn't. I placed the output in a safe place for later use. On to the upgrade! In aptitude, I selected exim4, which automatically marked exim (exim3) for removal. Good stuff. Out of paranoia, I put all other pending changes on hold so that there would be no side effects. The upgrade gave me several options in regard to the configuration file. I chose the "upgrade from exim3 manually" option. I'm guessing that this -- the lack of an existing exim4.conf -- is why the installer complained as it attempted to start exim4 up. I don't recall the exact message. I cheerfully ignored this error and copied my new config file into /etc/exim4/exim4.conf. I then restarted exim4. Now for testing. Messages to myself from the same machine worked fine; messages from elsewhere didn't. A quick check of the exim4 logs showed that it was complaining that port 25 was already in use. Odd. Attempting to telnet to port 25 resulted in a brief login message, then a closed connection. No mention of any mail server. While attempting to sort this out, I noticed that the start and kill links for exim 3 were still present in /etc/rc?.d ... not good. I scrapped those. In retrospect, I could have run purge instead of just remove, but then again, I wanted to keep the exim3 configuration around just in case I had to revert. So I dunno. I couldn't find a process binding to port 25, so I took the coward's way out and just rebooted, figuring that the port issue would sort itself out. [non-exim-related interlude] Kernel panics. Monique panics. Many reboots ensue. Some cause kernel panics; some exhibit a complete failure to communicate with the monitor; some cause urgent-sounding beep patterns. It is determined that some portion of the hardware is dead -- probably just the CPU fan, which is wobbling about in a sickly fashion, but there's an acrid smell that is a tad worrying. Possibly just dust; possibly more. The hard drives are nice and cool, though. Fiance to the rescue! My kernel is hand-rolled, athlon-specific, and only contains the drivers needed for that set of hardware. Fortunately, he had a box with the exact same motherboard (including integrated NIC). He was only using the machine for distcc compiles, so he suggested giving it my server's identity by swapping hard drives. "Would you really give up a machine for me?" I ask, trembling in gratitude. "Well, I'd rather give up this machine than have you be this upset," he offers. I knew I had a good reasons for marrying this guy! So we give his machine a brain transplant and bring it up. Works without a hitch! Unfortunately, the machine is underclocked to about 2/3 the speed of my server (something about the memory being flakey at full bus speed), but at least it's *up*. That's the important part. It gives us the chance to play the "swap parts till we find what's wrong" game at our leisure, rather than having to deal with it immediately. [/non-exim-related interlude] Once the machine was finally up again, exim4 worked just fine. It still supported the user-blah extension, and it still redirected all mail for unknown users to a single account. Good stuff. I re-enabled the port on the router and started getting mail again, including a bunch of stuff that proved that my backup MX had been doing its job. In summary, the conversion itself was fairly painless. The only gotchas were that the exim start links were not removed from /etc/rc?.d and that for some reason something (presumably some undead form of exim3) was holding on to port 25. The End. -- monique -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
