Re: use mailx instead of sendmail in apt-listchanges

[Dan Ritter <dsr@randomstring.org>]

Martin T wrote: 
> Hi,
> 
> I have apt-listchanges installed and registered in apt system:
> 
> # apt-config dump | grep apt-listchanges
> DPkg::Pre-Install-Pkgs:: "/usr/bin/apt-listchanges --apt || test $? -lt 10";
> DPkg::Tools::Options::/usr/bin/apt-listchanges "";
> DPkg::Tools::Options::/usr/bin/apt-listchanges::Version "2";
> DPkg::Tools::Options::/usr/bin/apt-listchanges::InfoFD "20";
> #
> 
> "frontend" in /etc/apt/listchanges.conf is set to "mail" and valid
> e-mail address is set with "email_address" configuration option. Now
> when I upgrade a package which has NEWS/changelog present, then I get
> the "apt-listchanges: The mail frontend needs an installed 'sendmail',
> using pager" error message. This is because I don't have
> /usr/sbin/sendmail binary installed. I prefer to use mail/mailx and an
> external MTA.
> 
> What could be the most elegant workaround in this situation? Create a
> /usr/sbin/sendmail wrapper script which processes the
> "/usr/sbin/sendmail -oi -t" command called by apt_listchanges.py and
> sends the mail using mailx? Modify the apt_listchanges.py? Something
> else?

You could do the wrapper, or you could install nullmailer, which
is an extremely simple MTA that always hands off mail to a
relayhost (i.e. somebody else's problem).

Modifying apt_listchanges.py would require you to keep
maintaining the changes forever.

-dsr-