FreeBSD 6 - update_virus_scanners weirdness

[Stephen Swaney]

> -----Original Message-----
> From: mailscanner-bounces at lists.mailscanner.info [mailto:mailscanner-
> bounces at lists.mailscanner.info] On Behalf Of Rick Chadderdon
> Sent: Sunday, March 19, 2006 1:49 PM
> To: MailScanner discussion
> Subject: FreeBSD 6 - update_virus_scanners weirdness
> 
> FreeBSD 6.0
> MailScanner  4.51.6
> Perl 5.8.8
> 
> This is a freshly built server, starting from a minimal FreeBSD 6.0
> install.  I installed MailScanner from ports after manually downloading
> MailScanner-install-4.51.6-1.tar.gz and fixing up the port to reflect
> the newer version of the file.
> 
> If update_virus_scanners (or even update_virus_scanners.cron) is run
> manually (as root), everything works fine.  If either is launched as a
> cron job (as root), the f-prot autoupdater fails with the error:
> "Updates download from http://updates.f-prot.com failed. Suspect server
> could not be reached,"  The f-prot-autoupdate script also works fine if
> run directly.  I installed the systutils/rc_subr port since
> update_virus_scanners.cron used it.  Also installed are clamav and
> bitdefender, and their updates seem to work fine from the cron job.  I
> disabled the ipfilter firewall for testing, but the problem still
> occurs.  There is no proxy server.  MailScanner is working great, as
> always.
> 
> Anyone have an idea what's happening here?
> --

This is not a MailScanner problem. Cron jobs run in a different, normally
more restricted, environment than root's normal shell. 

Setup a cron job that just runs `printenv` and compare that with the results
of running `printenv` from a normal root shell.

Hope this helps,

Steve

Stephen Swaney
Fort Systems Ltd.
stephen.swaney at fsl.com
www.fsl.com