mailwrapper (PSARC/2008/759)

[James Carlson]

Nicolas Williams writes:
> On Wed, Dec 10, 2008 at 03:49:34PM -0500, James Carlson wrote:
> > The sendmail(1M) man page documents the /usr/lib/sendmail interface.
> > If that's to become mailwrapper (and I agree it should!), then it's
> > _wrong_ to have that man page document something other than
> > mailwrapper.
> 
> Yes, but everyone knows what sendmail is, and mailwrapper is something
> else.  What should happen here is that the sendmail(1M) manpage should
> prominently reference the mailwrapper manpage.

Really?  What then documents /usr/lib/sendmail?

> > I'm assuming that the user invokes "man sendmail" first, and we tell
> > him exactly what the interface does (it's not sendmail.org anymore),
> > and that we point him in the right direction from there.
> 
> Except that sendmail is still sendmail

No, it's not.  This project explicitly moves "the real sendmail"
somewhere else, so that the wrapper can invoke it.

> -- not /usr/lib/sendmail, but when
> you run "man sendmail" how's man(1) to know that you mean "the sendmail
> in /usr/lib" instead of "the Real Sendmail"?

One way to do this would be to have a separate page that documents
"the real sendmail."  The mailwrapper change should create a new place
for the alternative MTAs it invokes to live, and that's a fine place
to document each of them.

I don't like having sendmail(1M) list /usr/lib/sendmail and then tell
you about something that isn't actually there, or is only "sometimes"
there depending on configuration options.  That's fine for the
original design of mailwrapper -- a simple light hack that users can
apply to their own systems, where the user "knows" what he's done to
the system -- but makes no sense at all for a system that's supposed
to be delivered without a pile of blue wires on top.

-- 
James Carlson, Solaris Networking              <james.d.carlson at sun.com>
Sun Microsystems / 35 Network Drive        71.232W   Vox +1 781 442 2084
MS UBUR02-212 / Burlington MA 01803-2757   42.496N   Fax +1 781 442 1677