ending the spam.assassin.prefs.conf madness.

Mon Nov 21 17:59:08 GMT 2005

Jules

'normally' the local.cf is in /etc/mail/spamassassin. BUT a lot of package
builders (as you say in the Solaris case) pop it into different places.

I guess you could say where-ever the init.pre or v<sa-version>.pre are
located, but trying to find that programmatically could be 'interesting',
esp in the latter case.

--
Martin Hepworth 
Snr Systems Administrator
Solid State Logic
Tel: +44 (0)1865 842300

> -----Original Message-----
> From: MailScanner mailing list [mailto:MAILSCANNER at JISCMAIL.AC.UK] On
> Behalf Of Julian Field
> Sent: 21 November 2005 17:49
> To: MAILSCANNER at JISCMAIL.AC.UK
> Subject: Re: [MAILSCANNER] ending the spam.assassin.prefs.conf madness.
> 
> Okay, I understand that I shouldn't be putting site-wide settings in
> spam.assassin.prefs.conf as it stands. Is there any way of
> (a) telling SpamAssassin to use spam.assassin.prefs.conf as a site-wide
> settings file,
> or
> (b) working out automatically exactly where the site-wide settings
> should go on any given installation. On things like Solaris the correct
> location is damn near impossible to find. Telling people to go and edit
> their site-wide SpamAssassin settings file is not much use. I need to be
> able to work out the precise location of the best file to use, and do
> the necessary editing for them in the install script. That's why I have
> always done it the way I have. It pretty much worked okay, and the file
> was in an easy-to-find location that (1) I could work out and (2) users
> would be able to find it again later if they needed to change something
> 6 months later when they had forgotten what the install script told them.
> 
> An ideal solution would be a soft-link in the MailScanner/etc directory
> to the real location of the file. But I still have to find the real file.
> 
> All constructive ideas are most welcome.
> 
> Anthony Peacock wrote:
> 
> >Hi Matt,
> >
> >
> >
> >>Richard Edge wrote:
> >>
> >>
> >>>Thanks Matt. As mentioned in another message I am using 3.1 not
> >>>3.01. It was a typo on my part. I have removed antidrug.cf. The
> >>>spam.assassin.prefs.conf suggested renaming the local.cf file so
> >>>that it wouldn't be used. Are you suggesting then that it be used to
> >>>disable certain SpamAssassin functions/tests?
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>
> >>I'm suggesting, that the advice in spam.assassin.prefs.conf is
> >>dangerous. I have no idea why Julian suggests this, as it's a BAD
> >>IDEA.
> >>
> >>
> >>Among other things, spam.assassin.prefs.conf should not contain any
> >>privileged or administrator options.
> >>
> >>These options work in this file on some versions of SA, but this is
> >>largely accidental because currently only the spamd code strictly
> >>enforces all aspects of the privilege parsing rules.
> >>
> >>According to the documentation of spamassassin, many of the options
> >>that Julian has in spam.assassin.prefs.conf should be ignored, and may
> >>well be ignored in a future version.
> >>
> >>In particular, use_auto_whitelist has proven unreliable if declared in
> >>spam.assassin.prefs.conf under 3.0.x. It only seems to work if
> >>declared in the place the docs for 3.0.x tell you it needs to be. At
> >>the site config level i
> >>
> >>
> >>IMNSHO, spam.assassin.prefs.conf should _ONLY_ contain options that
> >>you want to use under MailScanner, but not when using the command
> >>line. Fundamentally this is a user_prefs file, and should be treated
> >>as such. It is NOT a local.cf replacement.
> >>
> >>Using your local.cf for your site-wide settings guarantees that these
> >>settings will properly apply to sa-learn, and spamassassin --lint,
> >>without requiring you to remember to use -p
> >>/etc/MailScanner/spam.assassin.prefs.conf every time.
> >>
> >>Very often people add bayes_path statements to
> >>spam.assassin.prefs.conf, but fail to pass -p to sa-learn. In this
> >>case, all their manual training becomes useless, as it goes to the
> >>wrong place.
> >>
> >>Currently I've reduced my spam.assassin.prefs.conf to be empty except
> >>for timeout adjustments.
> >>
> >>I'd strongly suggest mailscanner users think long and hard about their
> >>options placement, and avoid using spam.assassin.prefs.conf for
> >>settings which really belong in local.cf. Treat this file not as a
> >>"master config" but as a way of customizing SA's behavior for
> >>MailScanner.
> >>
> >>
> >
> >Thanks for eloquently expressing something that I have been meaning
> >to write for a little while now.  I got bitten by the advice in the
> >MailScanner spam.assassin.prefs file, until I realised that it should
> >be considered a user prefs file, and not a replacement for local.cf.
> >
> >I am all for making life easy and not having commands in lots of
> >different places, but instructing people to delete local.cf is an
> >oversimplification.  I now have a basically empty spam.assassin.prefs
> >file, as I want most of the SA configurations to be applied site
> >wide, whilst running the SA command line tools as well as running
> >from MailScanner.  And some of the configuration commands are not
> >valid in a user prefs file anyway.
> >
> >I think it is a very good idea that Julian has created installs that
> >can install and configure a complete MailScanner, SA, ClamAV and MTA
> >setup 'out of the box'.  This makes life very easy for people
> >starting from scratch, who may not have the knowledge and experience
> >to stitch this all together.  However, this does cause confusion when
> >somone wants to implement a feature of SA that cannot be configured
> >in a user prefs file. (There was something recently, but I can't find
> >it in the archives right now.)
> >
> >Please do not take this as a pop at Julian or any of the other
> >contributors.  I just think it would be better to make the
> >distinction between SA's different config files, rather than glossing
> >over them.
> >
> >
> >
> 
> --
> Julian Field
> www.MailScanner.info
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