On Fri, Sep 6, 2013 at 11:14 AM, Canek Peláez Valdés <can...@gmail.com> wrote: > On Fri, Sep 6, 2013 at 10:51 AM, Jarry <mr.ja...@gmail.com> wrote: >> On 06-Sep-13 17:32, Michael Orlitzky wrote: >>> >>> On 09/06/2013 11:23 AM, Jarry wrote: >>>>> >>>>> >>>>> It wasn't part of @system before, you just removed the thing that pulled >>>>> it in. >>>> >>>> >>>> No I did not. mail-mta/ssmtp was part of stage3. And I did not >>>> remove now any "thing" that pulled it in. All I did was >>>> "emerge --ask --update --deep --newuse world". >>>> >>>> As a result, python-exec, python-argparse and libxml2 were >>>> reinstalled and automake-wrapper, gtk-doc-am, eselect and >>>> linux-header updated. Nothing else. >>>> >>>> After that I did "emerge --depclean" and the above mentioned >>>> packages were suddenly removed... >>>> >>> >>> It could be that a package's deps were updated to no longer include >>> virtual/mta. But it was never part of @system, you can check for yourself: >>> >>> >>> http://sources.gentoo.org/cgi-bin/viewvc.cgi/gentoo-x86/profiles/base/packages?view=log >> >> >> Then something got broken because I have packages installed >> that need mailer (i.e. app-admin/monit or sys-fs/mdadm are >> configured to send emails). And these packages do not have >> "mail" use-flag, because their maintainers apparently expect >> standard *nix mailer (/usr/bin/sendmail) exists on the system... >> >> So now I have "stable" system, updated to the latest level, >> where a lot of things suddenly do not work. This should *never* >> happen! If it was some package's dep that caused it, it's clear >> this change was premature... > > I think is a bug in the packages. In my system the only package that > pulls vitual/mta (and therefore ssmtp) is vixie-cron.
The change happened in the cron eclass: http://sources.gentoo.org/cgi-bin/viewvc.cgi/gentoo-x86/eclass/cron.eclass?r1=1.15&r2=1.16 >From the commit log: "Per extensive discussion with zmedico about removing the need for package.provided, several packages have been changed, like sudo, to not explicitly require an mta. Cron will follow, leaving mta support optional." The rationale (I suppose) is that the programs in question still work, just the sending of emails fails. Good riddance, if you ask me. If you need/want an MTA, just install ssmtp by hand. Regards. -- Canek Peláez Valdés Posgrado en Ciencia e Ingeniería de la Computación Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México
