I am wanting to install Apache JAMES as the MTA. Is this possible? I am trying to have NO mail-transport-agent. Using dselect or apt-get I can't figger out how to force the package configuration into a state where no mail-transport-agent exists, yet cron etc are still there. Thus my first question is how do I force this mis-configured configuration?

At the moment when exim is down (/etc/init.d exim stop), trying to install JAMES still complains that "java.net.BindException: Address already in use". I can see from the stack trace that an smtp server is trying to be run, so I guess I can assume that port 25 is still in use. Was there something I had to do more than bringing exim down? Is there an easy way to debug this sort of thing?

thanks - Chris Murphy

I don't know anything about James, i use postfix/pine, but have you tried:

#dpkg --purge exim

and then downloading the James binaries or .tar.gz files from apache.org? They seem to have plenty of docs for it.

Seeing what purge will do (qmail rather than exim,
but that shouldn't matter):

<<
# dpkg --no-act --purge qmail
dpkg: dependency problems prevent removal of qmail:
logcheck depends on exim | mail-transport-agent; however:
Package exim is not installed.
Package mail-transport-agent is not installed.
Package sendmail which provides mail-transport-agent is not installed.
Package postfix which provides mail-transport-agent is not installed.
Package nullmailer which provides mail-transport-agent is not installed.
Package qmail which provides mail-transport-agent is to be removed.
Package exim which provides mail-transport-agent is not installed.
mutt depends on exim | mail-transport-agent; however:
Package exim is not installed.
Package mail-transport-agent is not installed.
Package sendmail which provides mail-transport-agent is not installed.
Package postfix which provides mail-transport-agent is not installed.
Package nullmailer which provides mail-transport-agent is not installed.
Package qmail which provides mail-transport-agent is to be removed.
Package exim which provides mail-transport-agent is not installed.
mailx depends on mail-transport-agent; however:
Package mail-transport-agent is not installed.
Package sendmail which provides mail-transport-agent is not installed.
Package postfix which provides mail-transport-agent is not installed.
Package nullmailer which provides mail-transport-agent is not installed.
Package qmail which provides mail-transport-agent is to be removed.
Package exim which provides mail-transport-agent is not installed.
dpkg: error processing qmail (--purge):
dependency problems - not removing
Errors were encountered while processing:
qmail
>>

Also in my reading of man pages it seems to be indicated that you can't misconfigure the
package structure on purpose. It would be nice if you could have a 'dummy' debian package
for these situations.

As an aside I got qmail working from a debian package. The installation didn't set things up
too well (didn't find the domain). However I just changed the values of the files at
/var/qmail/control and everything was ok after that.

I definitely like Debian, but my feeling is that another distribution might be more
'Java orientated'. Is my feeling correct?

thanks - Chris Murphy

For determining which ports are in use I have found that this command works:

netstat -alp | grep LISTEN

- Chris Murphy

I previously stated this:

<
I definitely like Debian, but my feeling is that another distribution might be more
'Java orientated'. Is my feeling correct?
>

Since I have now looked the Debian Policy Manual at

http://www.debian.org/doc/debian-policy/

I have changed my mind. There is a standard way to have an intentionally 'misconfigured'
system, or a 'dummy' package. I think it would be to have an exit in one of the startup scripts,
thus in /etc/init.d/qmail for example:

I will be using Debian as my Desktop OS yet!

Just because cron is still there may not be cause for alarm. The cron package is typically dependent on the email system because that's how it normally reports batch job results (if you let it, anyway) to users. It's not really part of the email configuration; it just normally needs one to work.

...so what you are saying is that in cases where the odd dependency exists,
where you know what you are doing, you can simply remove then install again
later. I'm a bit more experienced now and have done that on occasions.

For the MTA example here, when I tried to get cron back the packaging system
would still want me to install a mail-transport-agent, and wouldn't let me say - my
MTA is actually JAMES. This makes perfect sense to me - I would have to package
up JAMES.

Every package that is depended on by other packages should be able to be
installed as a dummy version. This dummy version might just do things like log
whenever it was asked to do something it couldn't do. As it stands I have to
create this dummy package myself.

I have just recently seen a thread where the author has fitted up Java with
placeholder packages. So in a way my question has been answered: some
packages come with dummy versions, it is just that MTA is not one of them.

The full thread is here:
http://www.linode.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=797&highlight=java+dummy

For the record I got qmail going from the qmail-src package. In doing so, for
good or for bad, I had to learn allot about qmail. I am considering putting
together a set of step by step instructions for how to do this, as it would seem
that the prevailing understanding among a few people is that you always
have to install qmail from source. You don't have to on Debian!