User uucp to be member of group mail for `sendmail -f'?

[markus schnalke <meillo@marmaro.de>]

I work on bug #409912 [0] in the MTA masqmail currently.

[0] http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=409912

See also:
[1] http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=406395
[2] http://bugs.hylafax.org/show_bug.cgi?id=842

The point is that masqmail allows only root and the group mail to set
the from address (sendmail -f). But the program from hylafax runs as
user uucp.

For exim, this seems to be solved by adjusting the exim configuration:
``[...] you might use trusted_users and add uucp to it [...]'' [3].
See also [4]. It appears that the system administrator has to do the
change in order to enable uucp to call `sendmail -f ...'.

[3] http://pkg-exim4.alioth.debian.org/README/README.Debian.html#id305404
[4] http://lists.debian.org/debian-user/1998/08/msg03182.html


Masqmail does not provide this kind of configuration option. Only one
trusted group can be set up to now.

However, I think the problem could be solved by making the user uucp a
member of group mail. From my limited POV, this solution represents
the logic behind: uucp wants to use special facilities of the MTA,
thus it needs to be in group mail.

Like in exim's case, this change needs an action by the system
administrator. For masqmail, this action could influence other parts
of the system, but if it does, it probably does it the right way.


I request your comments.


meillo