courier-imap mailbase conflict

[gmtl3]

I'm trying to upgrade mailbase, and I'm getting the following error messages:

[schpanky]

[sfp-a7x]

Yeah, it's easy to follow the directions, but I would like to know the answer to a more fundamental question: How did the package end up with conflicting files in the first place? Barring an answer to that, could something break by blindly following the directions without understanding why they need to be followed? (Perhaps the package maintainer didn't test for this particular case?) Certainly mailbase should peacfully coexist with courier-imap, right?

Does someone know the proper long-term solution to this?

I guess I just wish that the error message was more descriptive. I guess I wish all error messages were more descriptive. If all the error message has to say is "do xyz", then it should just do "xyz" itself and let me get on with my life. If the error is more complicated than that, the message should say (1) what the problem is from the computer's point of view, (2) what the program was expecting, (3) what steps the program took before arriving at the problem, (4) a guess at what the problem is from the user's point of view, (5) possible causes of the problem, (6) possible solutions to the problem, and (7) possible side effects of the solutions. I know that writing software this way is tedious and non-sexy, but it would help Gentoo win more love from the non-l33t public.

[psychomunky]

I'm with sfp-a7x on this. I saw his remarks in another post regarding "If the solution is that simple why doesn't it do it it itself??" , I have the same question I and I think I know why it doesn't do it itself...because us as users may have made changes to it. What I am not understanding is why some etc-update magic be used to install the new versions instead of outright refusing to install??

Some background on this would be helpful, because I am afraid to upgrade for fear of breaking my mail server. It was a bitch to get fix once before after something broke it and I'd rather not go through that again.

I apologise if being a relatively intelligent gentoo user, who is curious as to "why?" rather than just "what?" offends some peeps in these forums, but I have seen about 8 threads on this same subject ("Why is it telling me these files conflict?") people just telling us to "Do what it says"....This is not our question...our question is why is it telling us that these files conflict when r6 didn't??

And yes I have seen the links to the bugs regarding the file permissions, but that seems to be a different issue with /var/spool/mail or something. If it is the same issue, I apologise, but could someone explain why those /var perm issues afftect files in /etc??

Thankyou in advance and I apologise for ranting!! I just had to get that off my chest since in the past I have never found these forums to be snide or condescending like some others I know, and the response to these questions were just rubbing me the wrong way...

[gmtl3]

Yes, schpanky's response was very helpful if all you care about is a successful emerge of mailbase. If, on the other hand, you're equally concerned about the health and functionality of your system, then the answer may not be that simple.

In this case, however, it is just that simple. I move /etc/pam.d/imap and pop3 to imap-courier and pop3-courier and then emerged mailbase. After a successful emerge of mailbase, I did a "diff" on the files and there were no differences outside of the comments.

So, it's safe to blow those two files away and the emerge mailbase. However, this kind of problem will continue to cause me fits as I upgrade the two packages. Perhaps one or both of them could be smart enough to just warn about the problem, don't overlay the existing version of the file with their own, and continue on to success. Then, if you start to have problems you could see the ebuild log files to determine the problem.

Thanks for the follow up posts.

[schpanky]

sorry I didn't get back on this quicker.....

[nickrout]

I just did the same as gmtl3 and it worked.

for those concerned about whether this will happen again, it seems from the comments: