[CentOS] sendmail/RPM question

[Kevan Benson]

On Thursday 16 November 2006 08:26, Dan Pritts wrote:
> Hi all -
>
> I've got a regular problem that i've been fixing by hand for a long time
> but i'm hoping i can get some advice about the right way to solve it.
>
> I replace the default redhat/centos sendmail configuration files with
> my own set.  I have always just done this by hand.
>
> One thing I do is completely whack submit.cf.
>
> when i update the system, RPM recreates this file.
>
> I've manually fixed things in the meantime, so I'm not sure of this,
> but I kinda think that it updates sendmail.cf too (specifically, I make
> a symlink sendmail.cf to my own cf file; i haven't experimented to see
> what happens when i install directly.
>
> I know at a very basic level how to create an RPM.  But I expect that
> if I create an RPM containing sendmail.cf, I will get a conflict with
> the existing sendmail.cf from the sendmail rpm; and I don't know how to
> override it.  I also don't know how to make it so that the submit.cf
> file just doesn't exist; I am pretty sure that if that file exists, it
> will get called by default when people call sendmail from the command line.
>
> Suggestions?  (not to include, "give in to running sendmail as a daemon
> in submission mode, etc")

Usually the RPM won't replace these files (and it doesn't in all my installs).  
I think the problem is that you are using symlinks.  Just replace the files.  
Make sure to replace or empty sendmail.mc as well, as restarting sendmail 
will rebuild sendmail.cf from sendmail.mc.

The submit.mc and submit.cf files are used for users submitting mail through 
the sendmail binary.  If you really need it changed, treat it similarly to 
the sendmail.mc and sendmail.cf files above.


-- 
- Kevan Benson
- A-1 Networks