From: "Omar Polo" <op@omarpolo.com>
Subject: Re: smtpd: independant match and action order
To: "Kirill A. Korinsky" <kirill@korins.ky>
Cc: tech@openbsd.org, Gilles Chehade <gilles.chehade@gmail.com>
Date: Sun, 01 Jun 2025 20:49:17 +0200

Kirill A. Korinsky <kirill@korins.ky> wrote:
> On Sat, 31 May 2025 18:36:41 +0200,
> "Omar Polo" <op@omarpolo.com> wrote:
> > 
> > op@omarpolo.com wrote:
> > > After an issue on github[1], I realized that we don't seem to document
> > > that an action needs to be defined prior its use in a match statement.
> > > 
> > > [1]: https://github.com/OpenSMTPD/OpenSMTPD/issues/1285
> > > 
> > > However, do we need this restriction?  Diff belows moves the action
> > > check after the configuration has been fully parsed.  The downside is
> > > that now you get a generic "referenced unknown action foo" error without
> > > a line number, but the plus side is that action and matches can be put
> > > in any order.
> > > 
> > > The alternative would just be a man page diff to highlight the ordering
> > > requirement.
> > > 
> > > Thoughts?
> > 
> > ping
> >
> 
> I had encountered this error but forgot to report it or dig into it.
> 
> I not sure that define an action after match which uses it is good idea, it
> smeels like a way which leads to error, and I think to make it clear in man
> is the right way.

I see your point, but still we can check for unknown rules (and actually
we might want to warn on unreferenced actions maybe -- but that's aside
from this diff)

when reading a configuration usually the first thing that i read are the
match rules, and only after the actions.

I'm not sure, this could be the start of making the configuration parser
not a first-pass one, but I'm not sure I want to push for it.

For the time being, maybe we can just add one line to the manpage instead.

diff /usr/src
path + /usr/src
commit - a8cdbfca47c492365cd5de45ff0eaa81af0849d9
blob - b2a563b4ee489834d9bcd7e5f26c1b0b1bd2c4fa
file + usr.sbin/smtpd/smtpd.conf.5
--- usr.sbin/smtpd/smtpd.conf.5
+++ usr.sbin/smtpd/smtpd.conf.5
@@ -596,7 +596,10 @@ of one
 directive, receive the incoming message, put a copy into each
 matching envelope, and atomically save the envelopes to the mail
 spool for later processing by the respective dispatcher
-.Ar name .
+.Ar name
+which has to be declared beforehand with the
+.Ic action
+directive.
 .Pp
 The following matching options are supported and can all be negated:
 .Bl -tag -width Ds