mpack depends on execv from ssmtp

[Vik]

Binary package hint: mpack

Attempting to send a file with "mpack <file> <email>" results in the following error after the Subject has been entered:

execv: No such file or directory

The file is not sent.

This is fixed by installing ssmtp, so presumably there is an unflagged dependency involved.

Using Hardy Kubuntu up to date as of 17th Jun 2008
lsb_release -rd
Description: Ubuntu 8.04.1
Release: 8.04
mpack 1.6-4
ssmtp 2.61-13ubuntu1

[era (era)]

The package Suggests: mail-transport-agent. Perhaps the dependency could reasonably be upgraded to Recommends: but that is a matter of detailed opinion. The dependency declaration is there, and by policy, it is the user's choice whether or not to install the suggested package. Thus, I am setting the Status of this bug report to Invalid.

"execv" is the name of the system call which fails; it probably attempts to execv sendmail, which is provided by the mail-transport-agent alternatives.

[flickerfly (josiah-ritchie)]

era, As I understand the documentation, this isn't an opinion thing. If the package does not operate without the other package, it is a depend, not a recommend. Below is my source for this information. If I misunderstand you, please correct or tell me how to use this package without the recommended package.

http://www.debian.org/doc/debian-policy/ch-relationships.html#s-binarydeps

"The Depends field should be used if the depended-on package is required for the depending package to provide a significant amount of functionality."

"The Recommends field should list packages that would be found together with this one in all but unusual installations. "

[flickerfly (josiah-ritchie)]

Also:
$ lsb_release -a
No LSB modules are available.
Distributor ID: Ubuntu
Description: Ubuntu 12.10
Release: 12.10
Codename: quantal

[era (era)]

I can speculate on why the package maintainer has opted for a weaker dependency, but if you would like to see this fixed, forwarding this bug upstream would seem like a reasonable first step.

http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/pkgreport.cgi?pkg=mpack;dist=unstable

[Frank van der Hulst (drifter-frank)]

I've just run into this, except that I do have ssmtp installed. System is a raspberry Pi running raspbian

Linux pi3 4.4.50-v7+ #970 SMP Mon Feb 20 19:18:29 GMT 2017 armv7l GNU/Linux

mpack -o ... works fine.
mpack ... [file] [emailaddress] fails with "execv: No such file or directory"
sudo mpack ... [file] [emailaddress] fails the same
ssmtp [emailaddress] works fine.

[era (era)]

I can't repro that in Xenial. The error message I get comes from the ssmtp sendmail: cannot open mail:25

If you can run strace mpack path/to/file <email address hidden> we could at least see what's wrong.

Also, make sure your PATH is correct. Out of the box on Ubuntu, ssmtp installs /usr/sbin/sendmail which might not be in your PATH if you are running as a mortal user.