ending the spam.assassin.prefs.conf madness.

Anthony Peacock a.peacock at CHIME.UCL.AC.UK
Tue Nov 22 16:38:33 GMT 2005


> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
> 
> On 22 Nov 2005, at 16:15, Anthony Peacock wrote:
> 
> > Hi,
> >
> >> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
> >>
> >> On 22 Nov 2005, at 15:58, Anthony Peacock wrote:
> >>>
> >>> However, if people think that manageing two files with such subtle
> >>> differences would be over complicated for the 90% of users that
> >>> want a simple out-of-the-box install.
> >>
> >> I think having 2 files would be more complicated than absolutely
> >> necessary.
> >
> > Fair enough.
> >
> >>>   Then I would prefer a
> >>> site_rules_path/mailscanner.conf file with a soft link from the
> >>> spam.assassin.prefs file.
> >>
> >> Should the real file be spam.assassin.prefs.conf or mailscanner.cf?
> >> I am in favour of the real file being spam.assassin.prefs.conf and 
> >> the link being mailscanner.cf. That keeps the RPM installer simpler
> >> too.
> >
> > From my perspective it wouldn't make any difference.  So I would go
> > with what made the installer easier.
> 
> Okay, that's made Anthony happy with a "1 soft link" solution.
> 
> ln -s -f <mailscanneretc>/spam.assassin.prefs.conf <site_rules_path>/
> mailscanner.cf
> 
> Now to get clearance from Matt and Rick...

I have just metophoricaly stepped back from this discussion to look 
at the root issue.  I actually think that the main problem we have 
(and this was raised initially), are caused by the comments at the 
top of the current spam.assassin.prefs.conf file.

The version that I have installed instructs users to disable their 
local.cf file.  If they already have a working SA setup that is just 
going to plain break it.

The comments also claim that an upgrade to SA would overwrite 
settings in the local.cf file.  This also is not true.

So perhaps all we need is some sensible comments in that file, that 
point out that settings in this file are for MailScanner only and any 
settings that need to be applied site wide should go in local.cf.  
And to prune or comment out some of the more eosoteric settings that 
Matt commented about earlier.

-- 
Anthony Peacock       
CHIME, Royal Free & University College Medical School
WWW:    http://www.chime.ucl.ac.uk/~rmhiajp/
"Computer  software  consists of  only  two  components: 
ones and zeros, in roughly equal proportions.   All that is
required is to sort them into the correct order."

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