[Reportbug-maint] Bug#627688: reportbug: should not assume a working MTA configuration

[Patrick Josef Strasser]

schrieb Sandro Tosi am 2011-05-23 19:49:
>> When configuring, reportbug suggests to use a local MTA instead of assuming no MTA is configured. This is even true for the "novice" part.
> 
> Nope, we intentionally ask for a MTA.

Asking for a MTA is good, but assuming it is configured is not so good.

When runnung "reportbug reportbug" following message is displayed:

> EXIM IS CONFIGURED FOR LOCAL DELIVERY: In Debian 4.0 (etch) and later,
>    exim4 is configured by default to only deliver email to addresses
>    on your system.  YOUR BUG REPORTS WILL NOT ARRIVE AT THE BUG
>    TRACKING SYSTEM UNLESS YOU FOLLOW ONE OF THE FOLLOWING STEPS:
> 
>    - Reconfigure exim (using 'dpkg-reconfigure -plow exim4') to send
>      mail to the Internet directly or via a smarthost.
> 
>    - Configure reportbug to deliver mail to your ISP's smarthost or
>      reportbug.debian.org directly (using 'reportbug --configure').
> 
>    - Alternatively, see /usr/share/doc/reportbug/README.Users for
>      instructions on how to use GMail's SMTP server to submit reports.

This is the missing information when _configuring_ reportbug. That's why
I think it's better not to assume a configured MTA, because in a
standard installation exim is MTA and is unconfigured. A non-expert user
- which should be the assumption for most Debian users - will get a
non-working reportbug, try reporting a bug and after failing will not
report a second bug...

>> Interrestingly reportbug assumes no special configuration for fetching bug reports.
> 
> because it's plain HTTP, and it it's not possible to fetch bugs, they
> won't be shown, while if you don't have a MTA/someway-to-send-an-email
> your bugreport is lost.

I assume the later to be the bigger problem: A duplicated bug report is
better than a missing bug report.

>> The question is:
>> Do you have a "mail transport agent" (MTA) like Exim, Postfix or SSMTP configured on this computer to send mail to the Internet? [Y|n|q|?]?
>>
>> This should default to No.
> 
> nope.

Can you give a reason for your "nope", please.

>> Consequently the next question should be formulated towards not knowing the SMTP host, rather to present the fallback presented at the end of the text.
> 
> if you don't enter anything, reportbug will end up using
> reportbug.debian.org on port 587, which we were asked to not default
> to.

It will fail before that point, because it assumes a configured MTA.

> So we're simply trying "hard" to configure reportbug to use some
> other service and rely on reportbug.d.o only as last resort.

That's great, but I see a pitfall in that path.

> That's also explained in the documentation:
> /usr/share/doc/reportbug/README.Users.gz §reportbug.debian.org SMTP
> Host Service Usage Policy

As said before, that document is not show while configuring, but when
reporting bugs against bugreport. Seems not very efficient to me, sorry.

Regards

Patrick
-- 
Patrick Strasser <patrick dot strasser at tugraz dot at>
Business Development des Zentralen Informatikdienstes (ZID)
Technische Universität Graz