[Dovecot] @2.0, --sysconfdir incorrectly populated with dovecot/*.conf

[Timo Sirainen]

On Oct 9, 2009, at 11:31 PM, PGNet Dev wrote:

> On Fri, Oct 9, 2009 at 7:40 PM, Timo Sirainen <tss at iki.fi> wrote:
>> This is intended, because there are now lots of config files by  
>> default. Or
>> should this be done somehow differently?
>
> lots of config file is fine ...
>
> according to:
>
>  http://www.gnu.org/prep/standards/html_node/Directory-Variables.html
>  " ... The directory for installing read-only data files  ..."
>
> should, iiuc, specify the DIR that CONF FILES are installed in. not a
> DIR that another DIR is installed in.   admittedly, i have NO clue as
> to how "rigid" that's supposed to be.

I think many other programs also use a directory.

>> Anyway the point is that just doing
>> "./configure" should still access /usr/local/etc/dovecot/ 
>> dovecot.conf.
>
> the default, as spec'd @ ./configure --help says,
>
>  --sysconfdir=DIR        read-only single-machine data [PREFIX/etc]
>
> which seems to imply that the .conf files are installed in PREFIX/etc
> ... not PREFIX/etc/dovecot

And that's definitely something that's never wanted with v2.0. It  
would just pollute the etc/ directory with lots of files.

> the fact remains that, atm, ./configure "as usual" (1) doesn't seem to
> create the /dovecot/ directory _under_ sysconfdir,

Hmm. That could be a good idea.

> and (2) causes an
> error (e.g., dovecot -n) when it doesn't find the files that a user
> would even manually place in the directory they'd expect the files to
> be in.

Well, it does say:

doveconf: Fatal: open(/usr/local/etc/dovecot/dovecot.conf) failed: No  
such file or directory (example config in /usr/local/share/doc/dovecot/ 
example-config/)

Do you have some idea how that could be made clearer?

> of course it's trivial to "figure out" once you get the error msg, but
> the goal would be to avoid the problem in the 1st place ...

Avoid what problem? That v2.0's config is in different directory than  
v1.x's? The wouldn't be compatible anyway. Or for a new installation  
it should put the example files to prefix/etc/dovecot/ directly?

>>> 2.0's behavior should be made consistent with the correct
>>> implementation in 1.2.x, or clarified as different in --help/docs.
>>
>> I don't think it's possible to change --help's text. As for other  
>> docs.. I'm
>> not really sure how I should even start describing all the v2.0  
>> changes and
>> where.. The v2.0's changed configuration is going to break so many  
>> wiki
>> pages..
>
> personally, i'd suggest cloning the 1.0/1.2 wiki to a parallel site,
> and making it just a 2.0 wiki -- to which changes can be made.  imo,
> trying to maintain a single site for all versions is just going to get
> horribly confusing, tough to maintain, and almost impossible to
> deprecate when the time comes.  Apache HTTPD does a very nice job of
> parallel sites for each version.

That's what I was also thinking, but I still need to pick one  
"primary" site where all the old wiki.dovecot.org/ links go. And it'll  
probably take at least 1-2 years until Dovecot v2.x usage is higher  
than v1.x and then lots of people try to use v2.0 configuration  
examples with v1.x and complain that they don't work.. Unless I could  
somehow clearly enough show in the wiki pages what version they're for  
and actually get people to notice without making the font size half  
the page size.