ssmtp-config fails on step 6

ssmtp-config fails on step 6

[Kevin Andrew Lipscomb]

ssmtp-config fails silently on step 6 at the first call to /usr/sbin/alternatives.

I isolated the alternatives command, added the --verbose switch to it, and ran the result from a bash shell that was launched as Administrator.  The command fails immediately after emitting:

   reading /var/lib/alternatives/mta

I am also reporting this as a bug in alternatives at bugzilla.redhat.com.
-- 
-- Kevin

Re: ssmtp-config fails on step 6

[Doug Henderson]

On Fri, 19 Nov 2021 at 11:00, Kevin Andrew Lipscomb via Cygwin
<cygwin@cygwin.com> wrote:
>
> ssmtp-config fails silently on step 6 at the first call to /usr/sbin/alternatives.
>
> I isolated the alternatives command, added the --verbose switch to it, and ran the result from a bash shell that was launched as Administrator.  The command fails immediately after emitting:
>
>    reading /var/lib/alternatives/mta
>
> I am also reporting this as a bug in alternatives at bugzilla.redhat.com.
> --
> -- Kevin

Please reply quoting the complete failing command line and output from
"uname -a".

Also please post the bug number or a link to the bug on bugzilla.redhat.com.

Note that alternatives must be run from an elevated cygwin window to
add or change the alternatives.configuration.


Doug - current cygwin alternatives maintainer

-- 
Doug Henderson, Calgary, Alberta, Canada - from gmail.com

Re: ssmtp-config fails on step 6

[Kevin Andrew Lipscomb]

On 2021-11-19 18:54, Doug Henderson wrote:
> On Fri, 19 Nov 2021 at 11:00, Kevin Andrew Lipscomb via Cygwin <cygwin@cygwin.com> wrote:
>>
>> ssmtp-config fails silently on step 6 at the first call to /usr/sbin/alternatives.
>>
>> I isolated the alternatives command, added the --verbose switch to it, and ran the result from a bash shell that was launched as Administrator.  The command fails immediately after emitting:
>>
>>     reading /var/lib/alternatives/mta
>>
>> I am also reporting this as a bug in alternatives at bugzilla.redhat.com.
>> --
>> -- Kevin
> 
> Please reply quoting the complete failing command line and output from
> "uname -a".

 From a shell launched (from Windows) as Administrator (which is a user that has fully elevated rights)...

Administrator@WIN-O968FBUMJDS ~
$ /usr/sbin/alternatives --verbose --install /usr/sbin/sendmail mta /usr/sbin/ssmtp.exe 0 \
         --slave /usr/lib/sendmail mta-sendmail /usr/sbin/ssmtp.exe \
         --slave /usr/bin/mailq mta-mailq /usr/sbin/ssmtp.exe \
         --slave /usr/bin/newaliases mta-newaliases /usr/sbin/ssmtp.exe
reading /var/lib/alternatives/mta

Administrator@WIN-O968FBUMJDS ~
$ uname -a
CYGWIN_NT-6.1 WIN-O968FBUMJDS 3.3.2(0.341/5/3) 2021-11-08 16:55 x86_64 Cygwin

> Also please post the bug number or a link to the bug on bugzilla.redhat.com.

I haven't managed to accomplish that yet.  Their system requires me to select a "classification" or "product" that the bug applies to, and it's not clear to me what I should select.


On 2021-11-19 19:07, Andrey Repin wrote:
:
> alternatives is known to make links to nonexistent objects. While this is
> possible on *NIX, you can only link to existing objects on Windows.

In my case, /var/lib/alternatives/mta does exist, and its contents can be seen here:

Administrator@WIN-O968FBUMJDS /var/lib/alternatives
$ cat /var/lib/alternatives/mta
manual
/usr/sbin/sendmail
mta-mailq
/usr/bin/mailq
mta-newaliases
/usr/bin/newaliases
mta-sendmail
/usr/lib/sendmail

/usr/sbin/ssmtp.exe
0
/usr/sbin/ssmtp.exe
/usr/sbin/ssmtp.exe
/usr/sbin/ssmtp.exe

Administrator@WIN-O968FBUMJDS /var/lib/alternatives
$


On 2021-11-19 20:10, Doug Henderson wrote:
:
> and make sure the ownership and permissions are identical to the other
> files, e.g. in my case:
> 
> $ ls -l /var/lib/alternatives
> total 8.0K
> -rw-r--r--+ 1 Admin None  41 Jul 16 11:25 2to3
> -rw-r--r--+ 1 Admin None  52 Jul 16 11:25 gnuplot
> -rw-r--r--+ 1 Admin None 218 Jun 16 17:48 lua
> -rw-r--r--+ 1 Admin None  77 Jun  5 08:46 pip3
> -rw-r--r--+ 1 Admin None  85 Jun  5 08:46 pydoc3
> -rw-r--r--+ 1 Admin None 110 Jun 16 07:34 python
> -rw-r--r--+ 1 Admin None  89 Jun  5 08:46 python3
> -rw-r--r--+ 1 Admin None  59 Jul 16 11:25 python3-config
> 

Here's what I have:

$ ls -Fals /var/lib/alternatives
total 1
0 drwxr-xr-x+ 1 Administrator None   0 Nov 20 11:46 ./
0 drwxr-xr-x+ 1 Administrator None   0 Feb  5  2018 ../
0 -rw-r--r--  1 Administrator None   0 Apr  4  2013 .keep-alternatives
1 -rw-r--r--  1 Administrator None 200 Nov 20 11:46 mta


Thank you both for your help with this.

-- Kevin

Re: ssmtp-config fails on step 6

[Andrey Repin]

Greetings, Kevin Andrew Lipscomb!

> ssmtp-config fails silently on step 6 at the first call to /usr/sbin/alternatives.

> I isolated the alternatives command, added the --verbose switch to it, and
> ran the result from a bash shell that was launched as Administrator.  The
> command fails immediately after emitting:

>    reading /var/lib/alternatives/mta

> I am also reporting this as a bug in alternatives at bugzilla.redhat.com.

alternatives is known to make links to nonexistent objects. While this is
possible on *NIX, you can only link to existing objects on Windows.


-- 
With best regards,
Andrey Repin
Saturday, November 20, 2021 3:05:44

Sorry for my terrible english...

Re: ssmtp-config fails on step 6

[Doug Henderson]

On Fri, 19 Nov 2021 at 17:21, Andrey Repin via Cygwin <cygwin@cygwin.com> wrote:
>
> Greetings, Kevin Andrew Lipscomb!
>
> > ssmtp-config fails silently on step 6 at the first call to /usr/sbin/alternatives.
>
> > I isolated the alternatives command, added the --verbose switch to it, and
> > ran the result from a bash shell that was launched as Administrator.  The
> > command fails immediately after emitting:
>
> >    reading /var/lib/alternatives/mta
>
> > I am also reporting this as a bug in alternatives at bugzilla.redhat.com.


> alternatives is known to make links to nonexistent objects. While this is
> possible on *NIX, you can only link to existing objects on Windows.


If that is the case, a possible workaround is to issue the following
command from an elevated shell

touch /var/lib/alternatives/mta

and make sure the ownership and permissions are identical to the other
files, e.g. in my case:

$ ls -l /var/lib/alternatives
total 8.0K
-rw-r--r--+ 1 Admin None  41 Jul 16 11:25 2to3
-rw-r--r--+ 1 Admin None  52 Jul 16 11:25 gnuplot
-rw-r--r--+ 1 Admin None 218 Jun 16 17:48 lua
-rw-r--r--+ 1 Admin None  77 Jun  5 08:46 pip3
-rw-r--r--+ 1 Admin None  85 Jun  5 08:46 pydoc3
-rw-r--r--+ 1 Admin None 110 Jun 16 07:34 python
-rw-r--r--+ 1 Admin None  89 Jun  5 08:46 python3
-rw-r--r--+ 1 Admin None  59 Jul 16 11:25 python3-config

-- 
Doug Henderson, Calgary, Alberta, Canada - from gmail.com

Re: ssmtp-config fails on step 6

[Ken Brown]

On 11/19/2021 7:07 PM, Andrey Repin via Cygwin wrote:
> alternatives is known to make links to nonexistent objects. While this is
> possible on *NIX, you can only link to existing objects on Windows.

You're talking about native Windows symlinks, not Cygwin symlinks.  The latter 
can point to nonexistent objects just as on *NIX.  This shouldn't fail unless 
the user has forced Cygwin to use native Windows symlinks by setting 
winsymlinks:nativestrict in the CYGWIN environment variable.

Kevin, have you done this?  If not, do you have any reason to think that 
alternatives failed to create symlinks?  What does 'ls -l 
/etc/alternatives/mta*' show?  On my system I see:

$ ls -l /etc/alternatives/mta*
lrwxrwxrwx 1 kbrown-admin None 19 2021-11-20 17:04 /etc/alternatives/mta -> 
/usr/sbin/ssmtp.exe*
lrwxrwxrwx 1 kbrown-admin None 19 2021-11-20 17:04 /etc/alternatives/mta-mailq 
-> /usr/sbin/ssmtp.exe*
lrwxrwxrwx 1 kbrown-admin None 19 2021-11-20 17:04 
/etc/alternatives/mta-newaliases -> /usr/sbin/ssmtp.exe*
lrwxrwxrwx 1 kbrown-admin None 19 2021-11-20 17:04 
/etc/alternatives/mta-sendmail -> /usr/sbin/ssmtp.exe*

I also have:

$ ls -l /usr/sbin/sendmail
lrwxrwxrwx 1 kbrown-admin None 21 2021-11-20 17:04 /usr/sbin/sendmail -> 
/etc/alternatives/mta*

and

$ /usr/sbin/alternatives.exe --display mta
mta - status is manual.
  link currently points to /usr/sbin/ssmtp.exe
/usr/sbin/ssmtp.exe - priority 0
  slave mta-sendmail: /usr/sbin/ssmtp.exe
  slave mta-mailq: /usr/sbin/ssmtp.exe
  slave mta-newaliases: /usr/sbin/ssmtp.exe
Current `best' version is /usr/sbin/ssmtp.exe.

Do you see something different on your system?

Last question: You said in your first post that "ssmtp-config fails silently" 
and that you isolated this to the alternatives command failing.  What do you 
mean when you say it failed?  Since it failed "silently", do you mean that 'echo 
$?' showed a nonzero error code?  Or do you mean that something is not working 
as expected?

Ken

Re: ssmtp-config fails on step 6

[Corinna Vinschen]

On Nov 20 17:26, Ken Brown via Cygwin wrote:
> On 11/19/2021 7:07 PM, Andrey Repin via Cygwin wrote:
> > alternatives is known to make links to nonexistent objects. While this is
> > possible on *NIX, you can only link to existing objects on Windows.
> 
> You're talking about native Windows symlinks, not Cygwin symlinks.  The
> latter can point to nonexistent objects just as on *NIX.

In fact, Windows symlinks can easily be created as dangling symlinks
as well.  Try cmd's `mklink foo bar' with non-existent bar in developer
mode or an elevated shell.


Corinna

Re: ssmtp-config fails on step 6

[Achim Gratz]

Corinna Vinschen via Cygwin writes:
> In fact, Windows symlinks can easily be created as dangling symlinks
> as well.  Try cmd's `mklink foo bar' with non-existent bar in developer
> mode or an elevated shell.

However you need to tell it if that name points to a directory or a
file, it cannot change afterwards on the fly.


Regards,
Achim.
-- 
+<[Q+ Matrix-12 WAVE#46+305 Neuron microQkb Andromeda XTk Blofeld]>+

SD adaptation for Waldorf microQ V2.22R2:
http://Synth.Stromeko.net/Downloads.html#WaldorfSDada

Re: ssmtp-config fails on step 6

[Corinna Vinschen]

On Nov 22 19:04, Achim Gratz wrote:
> Corinna Vinschen via Cygwin writes:
> > In fact, Windows symlinks can easily be created as dangling symlinks
> > as well.  Try cmd's `mklink foo bar' with non-existent bar in developer
> > mode or an elevated shell.
> 
> However you need to tell it if that name points to a directory or a
> file, it cannot change afterwards on the fly.

Yes, but only Explorer actually cares.  Nevertheless, it's one of the
most annoying Windows "features" since Vista.


Corinna