[FFe] Please sync mailscanner 4.66.5-2 from Debian(Unstable)

[Stefan Ebner]

Binary package hint: mailscanner

Please grant this sync. A RC Bug is fixed in Debian.
Debian applied the only remaining change (debian/init.d: check_dir tries to create missing directories before failing.)
So it's a sync :)

 mailscanner (4.66.5-2) unstable; urgency=low

   * Install links after fixing file permissions to avoid chmod
     errors, add docbook-xml to build-depends (Closes: #464317)
   * Drop upgrade scripts for mailscanner v3 (Closes: #467411, #467465)
   * updated dependencies:
   - libcompress-zlib-perl (>= 1.42)
   - libdbd-sqlite3-perl (>= 1.13)
   - spamassassin (>= 3.1)
   - libmailtools-perl (>= 2.02)

 -- Simon Walter <email address hidden> Wed, 27 Feb 2008 18:10:14 +0100
mailscanner (4.66.5-1) unstable; urgency=low

   [ Simon Walter ]
   * New upstream version (Closes: #425861, #429954, #465095)
   * Add Portuguese debconf translation. (Closes: #412883)
   * Removed f-prot location patch, f-prot-installer package has been removed
   * Add clamav and clamav-daemon to Recommends
   * Less commercial description (Closes: #432881)
   * Found new sponsor (Closes: #449140)
   * Remove /etc/cron.d/mailscanner on purge (Closes: #454381)
   * Test for mailscanner spool dir in daily cronscript (Closes: #435998)

   [ Anthony Fok ]
   * libmime-perl has been renamed to libmime-tools-perl as of 5.425-2, hence
     updated dependency to libmime-tools-perl | libmime-perl (>= 5.419)
   * MailScanner-File::Temp::VERSION-check.dpatch: /usr/sbin/MailScanner
     checks for Perl IO module >= 1.23, which does not yet exist in Debian,
     and IMHO is the wrong check. Checks for File::Temp >= 0.17 instead.
   * Sponsored the upload.

 -- Simon Walter <email address hidden> Sun, 24 Feb 2008 05:41:25 +0800

[Stefan Ebner (sebner)]

Upstream Changelog is really big!

[Stefan Ebner (sebner)]

hellboy@ubuntu:/var/cache/pbuilder/result$ sudo dpkg -i mailscanner_4.66.5-2_all.deb

Selecting previously deselected package mailscanner.
(Reading database ... 391571 files and directories currently installed.)
Unpacking mailscanner (from mailscanner_4.66.5-2_all.deb) ...

Setting up mailscanner (4.66.5-2) .

[StefanPotyra (sistpoty)]

No rdepends, bug #195260 would be fixed -> ACK #1 from me.

[Scott Kitterman (kitterman)]

Unless mailscanner has been fixed to not manipulate Postfix queue files via internal Postfix interfaces since Postfix is our primary MTA, I consider mailscanner FTBFS a feature and no bug.

[StefanPotyra (sistpoty)]

hm... I may not have too much knowledge about MTAs and postfix in general (I prefer exim myself) but it seems to me that the current procedure using the hold queue is not too problematic, is it?

If you think it is, I guess this still doesn't warrant to have a broken package in the archive... what options do we have? Remove/blacklist? add breaks against postfix? any other idea?

[Scott Kitterman (kitterman)]

It's an improvement, but it still manipulates the queue files directly
while they're on hold. It should work sort of OK if this version of
mailscanner has been updated for Postfix 2.5. I've no idea if that's the
case.

[StefanPotyra (sistpoty)]

@Stefan: can you check this please? Thanks!

[Stefan Ebner (sebner)]

I contacted Upstream:

Hi Stefan!

MailScanner most certainly does work with Postfix 2.5, but we did have
one issue with some milters in 2.5, so I have just posted a bugfix
release to solve that. I would not advise going with 4.66.5, but instead
anything greater than or equal to 4.68.6. This works just fine. It also
includes quite a few features that weren't in 4.66.5, as you can see
from the Change Log at www.mailscanner.info/ChangeLog.

As for the old political issues between MailScanner and the Postfix
team, all I can say is that there are many thousands of sites out there
using both of them together without any problems whatsoever. I haven't
got time for the politics, it doesn't interest me at all :-)

If you have any more questions, please do not hesitate to get in touch
with me.

Many thanks,
Jules.

Since Debian hasn't packaged anything higher than 4.66.5 it seems that we remain with 4.58.9-2ubuntu1!?

[Scott Kitterman (kitterman)]

> As for the old political issues between MailScanner and the Postfix
> team, all I can say is that there are many thousands of sites out there
> using both of them together without any problems whatsoever. I haven't
> got time for the politics, it doesn't interest me at all :-)

I always find it frightening that the mailscanner developers refer to using
undocumented internal interfaces of postfix despite being repeatedly warned
by the postfix developers not to do it because the file formats are internal
and subject to change without notice as a 'political' problem. This has been
their answer for a long time and from my perspective indicates they know
nothing about development of complex systems. If someone does upload this
for use with other MTAs (I understand it works well with Exim), it might make
sense to conflict with Postfix.

I certainly won't be acking anything regarding mailscanner. Anyone else who
wants to take it on is welcome.

[JulesFM (jkf)]

All I have ever wanted is that the Postfix developers publish their internal queue format. The sendmail one is published, the Exim developer is quite happy for me to use his (though he doesn't publish it), but the Postfix crew seem to be upset that I ever "thought outside the box" and came up with a way of using their software that they hadn't thought of themselves. They can still change the format if they need to, no problem, they just refuse to actually publish it.

You note that "it works well with Exim". Well, the Exim author has never published his internal queue format either, but is quite happy to work with me, and has no problem with MailScanner at all. It's the attitude of the Postfix team that appears to me to be the problem. But mud-slinging doesn't get anyone anywhere, which is why I usually do not get involved with their petty problems with me.

As for what I know, I am a qualified and certified engineer with a first class Masters degree in Electronics and Computer Science. I worked in the defence electronics industry for several years before I got into the sysadmin game, and have plenty of experience working on large and complex systems.

[Scott Kitterman (kitterman)]

I can understand that want, but the fact that you persist in using it anyway speaks volumes in my opinion. There probably isn't any point in further rehashing in this bug. I'm not going to convince you and you aren't going to convince me. There are 5 people in motu-release and it only takes 2 to approve it. So maybe two of the others will do so.

[Matthias Klose (doko)]

Scott, works fine with exim4 (which is in main as well). the postfix version is frozen, so the internal format won't change in hardy. It may be a bad design decision, I'm unsure if exim4 users deserve a 14 months old version. Can't approve, but would like to see it in hardy.

now at version:

mailscanner (4.68.8-1) unstable; urgency=low

  * New upstream release
  * Removed unused templates (Closes: #472676, #472067, #469916)
  * Fix broken non-standard conform init-script, which caused upgrade problems
    invoke-rc.d requires initscripts to return 0 if the daemon was already
    stopped (Closes: #472489)

 -- Simon Walter <email address hidden> Thu, 03 Apr 2008 21:32:08 +0200

[StefanPotyra (sistpoty)]

I'm ok with the update (just to get it right, Scott, this wasn't meant as a veto from you, was it?).

[Scott Kitterman (kitterman)]

No. It was not meant as a veto.

[Scott Kitterman (kitterman)]

Not getting done for Hardy. It will get auto sync'ed for Intrepid, so no bug needed.

[JulesFM (jkf)]

Does this mean that Ubuntu Hardy Heron is stuck with a build of MailScanner that simply doesn't work *at all*? The version that has been put in it has clearly never been tested, which looks pretty poor I have to say.
Instead of shipping a totally broken version (as other software MailScanner uses has been upgraded round it, but the version of MailScanner included is well over a year old), please can you either (1) fix it, or (2) remove it altogether.

I would rather have to explain to people how to install the .deb which is reasonably up to date (and works), instead of having an ancient version which won't even start due to dependencies.

As it is installed from a repository, and not included on any media, surely it should be possible to upgrade the version on the repo? If not, then please just remove it altogether.

I hope this is not a problem whenever the next version of Ubuntu is released, and that next time the software is cursorily tested.

Many thanks,
Jules
(Author of MailScanner)

[Scott Kitterman (kitterman)]

We get Mailscanner from Debian. I did ask other motu-release people to
look at it, but none felt they could approve it. If the version we have is
particulalry broken, I expect it's something you should take up with the
Debian maintainer.

[JulesFM (jkf)]

Scott Kitterman wrote:
> We get Mailscanner from Debian. I did ask other motu-release people to
> look at it, but none felt they could approve it. If the version we have is
> particulalry broken, I expect it's something you should take up with the
> Debian maintainer.
>
But the .deb is up to date, it is the version in the Ubuntu repo that is
horribly broken and out of date. I believe the .deb is at 4.68 which is
the latest stable release.

Jules

--
Julian Field MEng MBCS CITP CEng
<email address hidden>
Teaching Systems Manager
Electronics & Computer Science
University of Southampton
SO17 1BJ, UK

PGP footprint: EE81 D763 3DB0 0BFD E1DC 7222 11F6 5947 1415 B654
PGP public key: http://www.jules.fm/julesfm.asc

--
This message has been scanned for viruses and
dangerous content by MailScanner, and is
believed to be clean.

[Scott Kitterman (kitterman)]

I'm away from my computer today. Once I'm in a position to do so, I'll do
some research on how we got to this position so I can explain the process.
If there are patches that would get the current Ubuntu package from not
working to working there is a process to do that.

[JulesFM (jkf)]

Scott Kitterman wrote:
> I'm away from my computer today. Once I'm in a position to do so, I'll do
> some research on how we got to this position so I can explain the process.
> If there are patches that would get the current Ubuntu package from not
> working to working there is a process to do that.
>
Many thanks for this. If you still want to stick with the ancient
version, there is a patch that can be applied to make it work.
It all worked fine when I released it, however libraries and perl
modules have moved on in the intervening time, and so this old code no
longer works.

Thanks!

Jules

--
Julian Field MEng MBCS CITP CEng
<email address hidden>
Teaching Systems Manager
Electronics & Computer Science
University of Southampton
SO17 1BJ, UK

PGP footprint: EE81 D763 3DB0 0BFD E1DC 7222 11F6 5947 1415 B654
PGP public key: http://www.jules.fm/julesfm.asc

--
This message has been scanned for viruses and
dangerous content by MailScanner, and is
believed to be clean.

[JulesFM (jkf)]

Scott Kitterman wrote:
> We get Mailscanner from Debian. I did ask other motu-release people to
> look at it, but none felt they could approve it. If the version we have is
> particulalry broken, I expect it's something you should take up with the
> Debian maintainer.
>
If you can give me all the relevant pointers to get started, and a copy
of all the files I need to build an Ubuntu package for MailScanner (i.e.
all the files that form the build environment for it), I will have a go
at building my own Ubuntu package of MailScanner that will be up to date
and will work. I have Ubuntu Server and Desktop systems which I can use
to build them and virtual machines to test them on and will just produce
my own package.

However, I would still like to get a patch submitted to get the old
version in Hardy to a point where it basically works.

Many thanks,

Jules

--
Julian Field MEng MBCS CITP CEng
<email address hidden>
Teaching Systems Manager
Electronics & Computer Science
University of Southampton
SO17 1BJ, UK

PGP footprint: EE81 D763 3DB0 0BFD E1DC 7222 11F6 5947 1415 B654
PGP public key: http://www.jules.fm/julesfm.asc

--
This message has been scanned for viruses and
dangerous content by MailScanner, and is
believed to be clean.

[Scott Kitterman (kitterman)]

Taking a look back at this, Ubuntu carried a unique change so it was not automatically sync'ed. Up until this bug was filed, no one looked to see if the package needed to be updated. At this point we were past feature freeze and so it needed extra approvals. We need two separate plans:

1. Hardy: Prepare an update to address the serious bugs (no one appears to have filed a "mailscanner won't work at all" bug yet.

a. File such a bug with a patch (see step 3 in procedure in https://wiki.ubuntu.com/StableReleaseUpdates for what needs to be in such a bug). Subscribe me to the bug.
b. I'll take that and prepare an upload. I'll also address the RC bug fix that caused this bug to be files (http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=472489).
c. Once I get that uploaded to hardy-proposed, it will need testing.
d. Once tested it gets released to hardy-updates and we have a working (if old) mailscanner.

2. Intrepid: Request a sync

a. I'll do that. Once sync's are processed, then it will update automatically from Debian up to Debian Import Freeze.

3. Hardy part two: Request a backport

Once it's in Intrepid:

a. build and test this version in Hardy.
b. If it works, ask for a backport (https://bugs.launchpad.net/hardy-backports/+filebug) see https://wiki.ubuntu.com/BackportRequestProcess
c. Once it's approved, the archive admins will add it to hardy-backports and the current version will be available through official Ubuntu repositories for Hardy.