MailScanner Spam Settings Bug? / Problems with SA 2.50

[Julian Field]

At 15:20 25/02/2003, you wrote:
>I have made a couple observations regarding spam settings in the
>MailsCanner.conf file (v4.12-2), could someone offer a second opinion on
>the following:
>
>1.
>If "Spam Checks = no" and "Use SpamAssassin = yes" then SpamAssassin is
>not run at all, and no spam processing is done, the documentation is not
>very clear on this point.

Correct. The "Spam Checks" parameter covers *all* the spam checking.

>However if "Spam Checks = yes" and "Use SpamAssassin = yes" then
>SpamAssassin is run, but MailScanner also does internal spam checking,

correct.

>  and cannot be disabled simply by setting "Spam List = " and "Spam Domain
> List = " or by commenting both out.

Don't comment them out, set them to nothing and that should disable the
MailScanner RBL checks.

>2.
>Maybe this is a bug, but I'm not sure at this point; with SA 2.50
>installed; if you set
>     "Spam Checks = yes",
>     "Spam List = ",
>     "Spam Domain List = ",
>     "Use SpamAssassin = yes"
>
>then the following appears in the log file
>
>Feb 24 15:34:25 mailhost MailScanner[5658]: SpamAssassin timed out and was
>killed, consecutive failure 1 of 20
>Feb 24 15:34:36 mailhost MailScanner[5658]: RBL Check  timed out and was
>killed, consecutive failure 1 of 7
>Feb 24 15:34:52 mailhost MailScanner[5658]: SpamAssassin timed out and was
>killed, consecutive failure 2 of 20
>Feb 24 15:35:03 mailhost MailScanner[5658]: RBL Check  timed out and was
>killed, consecutive failure 2 of 7
>Feb 24 15:35:19 mailhost MailScanner[5658]: SpamAssassin timed out and was
>killed, consecutive failure 3 of 20
>
>It would apear that if you change to "Use SpamAssassin = no" , then the
>RBL Check timed out messages DO NOT appear in the syslog output. So maybe
>this is a bug or some kind of dependency on spam assassin that causes
>this??? But if SA times out this should not cause MailScanners internal
>RBL to timeout as well.

Agreed, unfortunately I have had difficulty reproducing this fault
reliably, which makes it hard to track down. If your SpamAssassin calls are
always timing out, then there is definitely something wrong anyway.

>This dependency on SA is why I suspect you cannot disable internal spam
>checking with MailScanner even if you set the Spam List check to null. I
>would much rather use SpamAssassin and not use MailScanner for spam
>checking at all.

Setting the "Spam List =" and "Spam Domain List =" should achieve that.

>Using the buggy SA 2.50, no emails were getting through the system at all,
>and the CPU utilization would jump to 100%. Since then I have uninstalled
>SA 2.50 and installed SA 2.44 and everything is back to normal.

Please see earlier discussion late yesterday, or the "News" section on
www.mailscanner.info for the solution to this.

>System configuration is as follows:
>
>Perl 5.6.1 (all SA required modules up to date as per CPAN)
>Redhat Linux 7.2 (with all RHN updates as of 2002-02-25)
>SA 2.44
>MailScanner 4.12-2
>
>Here are the changes to my MailScanner.conf file, you should be able to
>read the output from diff.
>
># diff MailScanner.conf MailScanner.conf.orig
>197c197
>< Virus Scanners = sophos
>---
> > Virus Scanners = none
>603c603
>< Send Notices = no
>---
> > Send Notices = yes
>655c655
>< # Spam List = ORDB-RBL spamcop.net
>---
> > Spam List = ORDB-RBL Infinite-Monkeys # MAPS-RBL+ costs money (except
> .ac.uk)
>661c661
>< # Spam Domain List =
>---
> > #Spam Domain List =
>665c665
>< Spam List Timeout = 60
>---
> > Spam List Timeout = 10
>672c672
>< Max Spam List Timeouts = 5
>---
> > Max Spam List Timeouts = 7
>694c694
>< Use SpamAssassin = yes
>---
> > Use SpamAssassin = no
>706c706
>< Required SpamAssassin Score = 8
>---
> > Required SpamAssassin Score = 5
>727c727
>< SpamAssassin Timeout = 60
>---
> > SpamAssassin Timeout = 30
>733c733
>< Max SpamAssassin Timeouts = 10
>---
> > Max SpamAssassin Timeouts = 20
>745c745
>< Always Include SpamAssassin Report = yes
>---
> > Always Include SpamAssassin Report = no
>825c825
>< Log Spam = yes
>---
> > Log Spam = no
>
>
>Here are the changes to my spam.assassin.prefs.conf file, again using diff
>output.
>115c115
>< score RCVD_IN_BL_SPAMCOP_NET    4
>---
> > #score RCVD_IN_BL_SPAMCOP_NET    4
>

--
Julian Field
www.MailScanner.info
MailScanner thanks transtec Computers for their support
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