Re: [cobalt-users] Editing sendmail.cf (was: mailscanner onraq550 gives an error)

[SM <sm@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Hi,
At 09:03 22-06-2003 -0700, Jeff Lasman wrote:
> That depends on how conversant you are with m4.  I can
> find/understand/read things in sendmail.cf pretty quickly; I'm not
> suggesting that you (or in fact anyone else) can <smile>.

I can't. :-)

> Since Sun Cobalt regularly makes changes in sendmail.cf and I don't
> think all those changes make it into the m4 files, I see that as an
> acceptable tradeoff.

You are right.  I hacked the cf a few times to add the POP3 before SMTP 
authentication and header checks.  I found it tedious when it came to using 
Milter and SASL.  I wrote a .mc which allows me to roll out an upgrade in a 
matter of minutes over several platforms.

> Certainly when I'm going to make changes to sendmail.cf for a client I
> tell them about the changes, and include them in a separate file they
> can add back later if either a Sun Cobalt patch or an m4 rebuild deletes
> them.

I wish there were more people like you.  Most customers I come across don't 
know  what changes have been done over the years.

> Can you tell me some other programs that use m4?  If it turns out that
> learning m4 will make my job easier, I'm happy to learn it.

Autoconf uses .m4 macros.  I think there is some misunderstanding here.  I 
am not suggesting that the admin acquires some knowledge of the m4 language 
to use it.  I add rulesets to the .mc and only use m4 to generate the .cf.

> I presume you mean that if you're willing to follow someone else's
> cut-and-paste instructions you don't have to know the language.

That is why we are using the kettle as our server. :)

Regards,
-sm