Re: /etc/aliases and policy -- possible mass bug filing

[Andreas Metzler <ametzler@downhill.at.eu.org>]

Blars Blarson <blarson@blars.org> wrote:
> Several packages I have installed (and presumably others I havn't)
> modify /etc/alises in the install scripts.  This is presumably a
> configuration file, which should be owned by a single package.  They
> don't even do so in a consistant way that will work with each other.
> (Sendmail makes it a symbolic link.  Other packages replace the
> symbolic link with a file.)  When adopting cnews, I changed the
> install script not to modify /etc/aliases.

> Should I file serious bugs against non-MTA packages modifying
> /etc/aliases ? 
[...]

No. See policy 11.6, it is explicitely allowed:
| /etc/aliases is the source file for the system mail aliases (e.g.,
| postmaster, usenet, etc.), it is the one which the sysadmin and
| postinst scripts may edit. After /etc/aliases is edited the program
| or human editing it must call newaliases.

I really wonder whether it is ok for sendmail to make it a symlink,
though, policy says "file".
              cu andreas
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