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Yes - I have read this similar Q and all the answers. Unfortunately that was from years ago, and none of the answers work any longer.

I'm running an Ubuntu server 22.04, and installed mailutils. Near the end of my first installation, I got a "window" (ncurses??) that popped up in the terminal, asking what type of install I wanted to do. Being ignorant, I went with the default "Internet", and learned later that the correct choice for my situation was "Satellite".

I can find no way to revert that decision. I have un-installed/removed, purged, re-booted and re-installed mailutils multiple times now, but that "window" will not reappear. It's rather frustrating... Does anyone know how to rectify this??

EDIT 1:

FWIW, here's a list of the dependencies installed:

The following NEW packages will be installed: gsasl-common guile-3.0-libs libgc1 libgsasl7 libidn12 libltdl7 libmailutils8 libmysqlclient21 libntlm0 libpq5 mailutils mailutils-common mysql-common

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  • Are you sure that was about mailutils? This question more likely was asking about some MTA, e.g. Postfix, Exim, etc.. If that's the case, ignore that dialog, as you are want to customize MTA configuration for your purpose anyway, or you don't need an MTA.
    – Nikita Kipriyanov
    Dec 2 at 4:21
  • I am not interested in what happened in someone's case of 10 years old. I was asking about your particular case. Many packages might be installed as a result of running a single command due to dependencies, and I presume mailutils might have a dependency on MTA. By the way, you can still consult what really was installed in /var/log/dpkg.log, and hopefully it even disclose which package configuration window it was.
    – Nikita Kipriyanov
    Dec 2 at 4:29
  • It might be helpful if you extract a list of all packages that were installed during that particular run. We can try to figure out which one you need to reconfigure.
    – Nikita Kipriyanov
    Dec 2 at 4:57
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    Look here: packages.ubuntu.com/jammy/mailutils it has a dependency on a virtual package default-mta which defaults to Postfix. dpkg-reconfigure postfix.
    – Nikita Kipriyanov
    Dec 2 at 5:00
  • You may attempt to fix your installation with apt install -f. If that succeeds, resolve further. As to prevent this, better don't install debs like that, always pull from repository with apt. If you were provided with a deb file, better create your own repo and install from it. That said, this deviates from the question too much.
    – Nikita Kipriyanov
    Dec 2 at 5:13

2 Answers 2

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I recognise internet and satellite as choices on the exim configuration and it is reasonable to assume that exim is a dependancy of mailutils. so dpkg-reconfigure exim4-config (or dpkg-reconfigure postfix, or dpkg-reconfigure <whatever-the-MTA-is>) will let you revisit those choices.

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  • These options appear not for exactly Exim but for any MTA available: Exim, Postfix, Sendmail. One needs to actually review which one they actually had installed and act accordingly. By default Ubuntu is shipped with Postfix, (default-mta resolves to postfix), so most likely one needs to run dpkg-reconfigure postfix.
    – Nikita Kipriyanov
    Dec 2 at 5:01
  • Yeah - I get your thinking on this, but unfortunately Exim is not a dependency of the mailutils package. I've edited my question to include the dependencies - does that help?
    – Seamus
    Dec 2 at 5:02
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    It doesn't have a direct dependency. It depends on default-mta, which could be provided by any MTA available. By default it will resolve to postfix, but if you already had exim installed, it wouldn't change that and accept exim as MTA.
    – Nikita Kipriyanov
    Dec 2 at 5:04
  • That's sound thinking. Turns out that it was postfix that needed the reconfig. +1
    – Seamus
    Dec 2 at 5:55
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Dpkg-reconfigure mailutils

Remember this Linux command very good. It allows you to rerun the package installation when something goes wrong

Edit / Update And when you try to remove the package completely including dependent packages, and then manually try to install by downloading it

wget http://security.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/pool/universe/m/mailutils/mailutils_3.14-1_amd64.deb

And then install using dpkg -i

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  • I'm sorry, but I tried that while exhausting possibilities on the similar Q. When I run this command sudo dpkg-reconfigure mailutils, it simply does nothing. (also tried with --force option - same result).
    – Seamus
    Dec 2 at 4:01
  • And when do apt-get purge mailutils and install again. You can also configure it manually using /etc/mailutils.conf. To see where the config is stored you can also run mailutils info sysconfdir
    – Turdie
    Dec 2 at 4:04
  • There is no /etc/mailutils.conf... there are three files in /etc that start wit mail: mailcap, mailcap.order and mailname
    – Seamus
    Dec 2 at 4:11
  • ... and I think I mentioned in my Question that I had "un-installed/removed, purged, re-booted and re-installed mailutils multiple times", and I did try dpkg-reconfigure several times - even with the --force option.
    – Seamus
    Dec 2 at 4:20
  • I added an update to mu post for you to try. It could also be that you got the configuration of a dependent package like postfix or something like that
    – Turdie
    Dec 2 at 4:47

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