[Pkg-exim4-users] documentation patch

[Marc Haber]

Hi,

On Mon, May 09, 2005 at 09:19:24AM +0300, Luc Saffre wrote:
> I suggest a little change to the README.Debian file:

Thanks! Committed to svn, together with more clarification:

--- debian/README.Debian        (revision 1135)
+++ debian/README.Debian        (working copy)
@@ -120,13 +120,25 @@
 exim4-config or by changing the value of dc_use_split_config in
 update-exim4.conf.conf manually.

-The split into multiple files below /etc/exim4/conf.d/ is quite
-straightforward. Each section of exim's configuration has its own
-subdirectory and the files in there are supposed to be read in
-alphanumeric order. router/00_exim4-config_header is followed by
+Splitting into multiple files means that you have the actual
+configuration file automatically generated from the files below
+/etc/exim4/conf.d/ by invoking "update-exim4.conf". Each section of
+exim's configuration has its own subdirectory and the files in there
+are supposed to be read in alphanumeric order.
+router/00_exim4-config_header is followed by
 router/100_exim4-config_domain_literal, ...

-Benefits of this approach:
+If you chose unsplit configuration, "update-exim4.conf" builds the
+configuration from /etc/exim4/exim4.conf.template, which is basically
+the files from /etc/exim4/conf.d/ concatenated together at package
+build time, and thus guarantees consistency on the target system.
+
+In both cases, update-exim4.conf does integrate the debconf
+configuration values into the actual configuration file which is then
+in turn used by the exim4 daemon. See the update-exim4.conf manual
+page for more in-depth information about this mechanism.
+
+Benefits of the split configuration approach:
    * it means less work for you when upgrading. If we shipped one big file
      and modified for example the Maildir transport in a new version you
      won't have to do manual conffile merging unless you had changed
@@ -134,7 +146,7 @@
    * It allows other packages (e.g. sa-exim) to modify exim's
      configuration by shipping files in /etc/exim4/conf.d.

-Downsides of this approach:
+Benefits of the unsplit configuration approach:
    * It is more fragile. If I add optionfoo=bar to the Debian setup of
      a later version, and you have already set this option in a local
      file, exim will break with the new version until you manually
@@ -146,6 +158,12 @@
 config at the price of having to more closely examine the config file
 after an update.

+If you are using unsplit configuration, have local changes to
+/etc/exim4/conf.d/ (either made by yourself or by other packages
+dropping their own routers or transports in) and want to re-generate
+/etc/exim4/exim4.conf.template to activate these changes, you can do
+so by using update-exim4.conf.template.
+
 Our configuration can be controlled in a limited way by setting
 macros. That way, you can switch on and off certain parts of the
 default configuration without having to touch the dpkg-conffiles.

Greetings
Marc

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