Bug#991781: RFR: fail2ban can't send e-mail using mail from bsd-mailx

[Joost van Baal-Ilić <joostvb@debian.org>]

Hi,

I've fixed a typo in the patch: s/provide/provider/ , patch below
adjusted.

Also, it's not clear to me wether one should do e.g.

 sudo update-alternatives --config mail

and select mail.mailutils, or would it be easier/better to edit files in
/etc/fail2ban/action.d/ ?  But indeed, otoh, maybe we should just leave it as
is.

HTH, Bye,

Joost


On Wed, Aug 04, 2021 at 09:55:54PM +0200, Paul Gevers wrote:
> Control: severity -1 normal
> Control: notforwarded -1
> Control: tags -1 - upstream
> Control: tags -1 patch pending
> 
> Hi,
> 
> I have the attached patch ready to push. I'm wondering if we need more
> detailed instructions.
> 
> Paul

> From 072744ceed8cac5cef19c92d9e506bebeb26b482 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001
> From: Paul Gevers <elbrus@debian.org>
> Date: Wed, 4 Aug 2021 09:59:34 +0200
> Subject: [PATCH] issues.dbk: fail2ban and mail from bsd-mailx don't work
>  together
> 
> Closes: #991781
> ---
>  en/issues.dbk | 23 +++++++++++++++++++++++
>  1 file changed, 23 insertions(+)
> 

diff --git a/en/issues.dbk b/en/issues.dbk
index a01b2967..4eab01ef 100644
--- a/en/issues.dbk
+++ b/en/issues.dbk
@@ -493,6 +493,29 @@ data = ${lookup{$local_part}lsearch{/some/path/$domain_data/aliases}}
     </para>
   </section>
 
+  <section id="fail2ban">
+    <title>fail2ban can't send e-mail using mail from bsd-mailx</title>
+    <para>
+      The <systemitem role="package">fail2ban</systemitem> package can
+      be configured to send out e-mail notifications. It does that
+      using <command>mail</command>, which is provided by multiple
+      packages in Debian. A security update (needed on systems that
+      use <command>mail</command> from <systemitem
+      role="package">mailutils</systemitem>) just before the release
+      of bullseye broke this functionality for systems that have
+      <command>mail</command> provided by <systemitem
+      role="package">bsd-mailx</systemitem>. Users of
+      <systemitem>fail2ban</systemitem> in combination with
+      <systemitem>bsd-mailx</systemitem> that wish
+      <systemitem>fail2ban</systemitem> to send out e-mail, should
+      either switch to a different provider for <command>mail</command>
+      or manually unapply <ulink
+      url="https://github.com/fail2ban/fail2ban/commit/410a6ce5c80dd981c22752da034f2529b5eee844";>the
+      upstream commit</ulink> (all files are in
+      <filename>/etc/fail2ban/action.d/</filename>).
+    </para>
+  </section>
+
   <section id="before-first-reboot">
       <title>Things to do post upgrade before rebooting</title>
       <!-- If there is nothing to do -->