Pkg exim4 users - Mar 2009 - how to recover exim4 after upgrade from etch to lenny

When I upgraded from Etch to Lenny today I did, what is safest most of 
the times: keep all modified config-files ("N"). Only afterwords I 
realised that this was not such a good idea with Exim4.

After some searching I tried to modify the template manually, as I 
*think* is suggested in /usr/share/doc/exim4-config/NEWS.Debian.gz: 
removed "DEBCONF" and ran another update-exim4.conf, which did not 
complain about DEBCONF any more but about other problems:

 >>
2009-03-08 13:46:13 Exim configuration error in line 28 of 
/var/lib/exim4/config.autogenerated.tmp:
   main option "minimaldns" unknown
<<

I got rid of some of the error messages commenting out lines or guessing 
what could be a reasonable option but gave up after some hours, 
realising that I won''t be able to find all parameters in an over 1900 
lines long template by trial & error.

Then I thought, I could just uninstall + purge exim4 to get rid of the 
offending config-files, *but* dpkg would also have removed smokeping 
because of an unmet dependency. So I installed postfix, which saved 
smokeping and removed exim4 automatically, but without --purge.

So I guess, the only possibility to install exim4 again, is to remove 
the config files manually, but I am not sure which ones I have to 
remove, as there are so many (see below).

Do I have to remove just /etc/exim4 and /etc/exim4-debian or also the 
files in /etc/default/ /etc/cron.daily/ etc?

Or is there any other way to make exim4 function again?

And even more important: I have a second computer running etch and exim4 
and would really prefer, not to brake that one also :) How can I upgrade 
without losing my configs? Will the new configuration files that are 
offered during upgrade use what is written in update-exim4.conf.conf, 
and keep files like email-addresses and passwd.client or do I have to 
configure everything from scratch?

Sorry about the length of my mail and thank you in advance for hints how 
to proceed :)

If there'' another place to ask these questions, please tell me (German 
or French mailing-lists would be fine, too).

Regards,
jutta



srv01:/# find / -iname exim4*
/var/spool/exim4
/var/cache/apt/archives/exim4_4.63-17_all.deb
/var/cache/apt/archives/exim4-base_4.63-17_i386.deb
/var/cache/apt/archives/exim4-config_4.63-17_all.deb
/var/cache/apt/archives/exim4-base_4.69-9_i386.deb
/var/cache/apt/archives/exim4-config_4.69-9_all.deb
/var/cache/apt/archives/exim4-daemon-light_4.69-9_i386.deb
/var/cache/apt/archives/exim4-daemon-light_4.63-17_i386.deb
/var/cache/apt/archives/exim4_4.69-9_all.deb
/var/lib/dpkg/info/exim4-daemon-light.postrm
/var/lib/dpkg/info/exim4-config.list
/var/lib/dpkg/info/exim4-base.postrm
/var/lib/dpkg/info/exim4.postrm
/var/lib/dpkg/info/exim4-base.list
/var/lib/dpkg/info/exim4.list
/var/lib/dpkg/info/exim4-config.postrm
/var/lib/dpkg/info/exim4-daemon-light.list
/var/lib/exim4
/var/run/exim4
/var/log/exim4
/etc/cron.daily/exim4-base
/etc/cron.daily/exim4-base.dpkg-new
/etc/exim4
/etc/exim4/exim4.conf.template.dpkg-dist
/etc/exim4/exim4.conf.template
/etc/default/exim4
/etc/init.d/exim4
/etc/init.d/exim4.dpkg-new
/etc/logrotate.d/exim4-base
/etc/logrotate.d/exim4-base.dpkg-new
/etc/logrotate.d/exim4-paniclog.dpkg-new
/etc/ppp/ip-up.d/exim4
/etc/exim4-debian
/etc/exim4-debian/exim4
/etc/exim4-debian/exim4/exim4.conf.template
/backup/exim4-debian-backup.tar
/backup/exim4-backup.tar
/backup/misc/exim4.conf.template
srv01:/#

Jutta Zalud <ju at netzwerklabor.at> wrote:
[...]
> Then I thought, I could just uninstall + purge exim4 to get rid of the 
> offending config-files, *but* dpkg would also have removed smokeping 
> because of an unmet dependency. So I installed postfix, which saved 
> smokeping and removed exim4 automatically, but without --purge.
> So I guess, the only possibility to install exim4 again, is to remove 
> the config files manually, but I am not sure which ones I have to 
> remove, as there are so many (see below).
> Do I have to remove just /etc/exim4 and /etc/exim4-debian or also the 
> files in /etc/default/ /etc/cron.daily/ etc?
> Or is there any other way to make exim4 function again?
[...]

The easy/dirty way to start fresh, without needing to temprarily
install postfix:
apt-get --purge install exim4
/etc/init.d/exim4 stop
dpkg --force-depends --purge exim4-config
dpkg -i /var/cache/apt/archives/exim4-config_4.69-9_all.deb

This is probably not what you want. The main thing you''ll need to is 
take (a copy of) /etc/exim4/exim4.conf.template.dpkg-dist, re-apply the
local modifications present in /etc/exim4/exim4.conf.template and
install this modified file in /etc/exim4/exim4.conf.template. If this
is not enough repat for tghe other files with .dpkg-new files.

cu andreas

-- 
`What a good friend you are to him, Dr. Maturin. His other friends are
so grateful to you.''
`I sew his ears on from time to time, sure''

am Montag, 09. M?rz 2009 um 20:03 schrieben Sie:
>> Or is there any other way to make exim4 function again?
AM> [...]

AM> This is probably not what you want. The main thing you''ll need
to is
AM> take (a copy of) /etc/exim4/exim4.conf.template.dpkg-dist, re-apply the
AM> local modifications present in /etc/exim4/exim4.conf.template and
AM> install this modified file in /etc/exim4/exim4.conf.template. If this
AM> is not enough repat for tghe other files with .dpkg-new files.

Thanks a lot! Just copying /etc/exim4/exim4.conf.template.dpkg-dist to
/etc/exim4/exim4.conf.template was enough (and removing an old
paniclog). My individual settings are in files like update-exim4.conf,
smtp_users etc.

Sincerely,

jutta