sendmail offers auth even if one do not want it

[hruodr]

In http://forums.debian.net/viewtopic.php?f=10&t=142241

I wrote, that "apt-get autoremove" also removes mannually instalated packages.

I did "apt-get purge libsasl2-modules-ldap libsasl2-modules-db sasl2-bin" and "apt-get autoremove" because I was frustrated
that sendmail contnued to offer AUTH also I deleted that configuration from "/etc/mail/sendmail.mc".

Perhaps the reason is, that this fatastic debian read also configuration files from "/etc/mail/sasl" that one did not add manually,
because one knows that only sendmail.mc and submit.mc are sendmail configuration files.

Sendmail is difficult enough to configure, debian makes it much more difficult, if not impossible.

[hruodr]

And after all purging, it continues to offer authentication, with the last methods I had configured it.

[hruodr]

Debian offers by default:

AUTH DIGEST-MD5 CRAM-MD5

I can avoid that it offer ATUT putting in sendmail.mc an empty list of authentication methods:

define(`confAUTH_MECHANISMS', `')

But why this behaviour?
Is confAUTH_MECHANISMS defined somewhere else in a hidden configuration file of instransparent debian?