Uninstalling exim (when turning it off is not enough)

[Paul Howarth]

neidorff wrote:
> Hi all,
> 
> A recap:  I'm running FC3.  I used qmailrocks.org to install qmail,
> spamassassin, clamav and many associated packages.  I'm very happy
> with the system.
> 
> I also had (turned it off) yum running on a daily basis to update my
> system.  Little did I know that it would install new pacakages on its
> own!  So, what happened was that yum installed exim and mail stopped.
> 
> A very nice person on this list, as I was trying to debug this mess
> (and blaming the problem incorrectly on a perl update) noted that exim
> was running.  I immediately stopped exim and mail is once again being
> processed through qmail, spamassassin and clamav.
> 
> But, I still have a problem.  Something that exim installed is
> blocking pop3 access from kmail.  (I can see my local mail using
> squirrelmail or pine)  The easy solution would be to uninstall exim
> (rpm -e), but when I try to do that, rpm complains that:
> 
> error: Failed dependencies:
>         /usr/sbin/sendmail is needed by (installed) redhat-lsb-1.3-4.i386
>         smtpdaemon is needed by (installed) mdadm-1.6.0-2.i386
>         smtpdaemon is needed by (installed) mutt-1.4.1-10.i386
>         smtpdaemon is needed by (installed) fetchmail-6.2.5-7.fc3.1.i386
> I understand what the error is telling me.  Moving /usr/bin/sendmail
> out of the way is no problem.  But smtpdaemon has me stumped.  I
> looked at the list of files that exim installed (rpm -q --filesbypkg
> exim) but I can't find a reference to smtpdaemon.  My question is: 
> what do I do to get rid of exim (the smtpdaemon part, I think) without
> disrupting what I have installed?

smtpdaemon is a "virtual" rpm dependency that can be satisfied by any 
MTA rpm package. Currently it is being satisfied by exim on your system. 
Ideally you should have a qmail RPM package that also "provides" this 
dependency. You would have to build an RPM of qmail yourself though in 
order to satisfy that dependency, due to qmail's licensing issues.

In the absence of a qmail RPM providing this dependency, installing any 
of exim, sendmail or postfix should be enough to keep RPM happy. So if 
you install sendmail or postfix, you'll be able to get rid of exim.

I have my doubts that exim is responsible for your pop issues though, 
since the MTA and the pop server are completely different things. Which 
pop server are you using?

Paul.