Trouble-free steps to upgrade mailscanner?

[Dan Stromberg]

On Thu, 11 May 2006 11:39:12 -0500, Alex Neuman van der Hans wrote:


>> For example, is there a way to have two versions of mailscanner running on
>> the host at the same time, so you can test the new one, and cut over later
>> once you feel confident about the new one by doing something simple, like
>> changing a symlink and restarting a daemon?
>>   
> 
> I think somebody mentioned something like this (they were talking about 
> BSD I think) where someone would:
> 
> 1. Stop MailScanner
> 2. Move /wherever/MailScanner to /old/mailscanner
> 3. Create symlink from /wherever/MailScanner to /old/mailscanner
> 4. install new MailScanner to /new/mailscanner

Yes, this sounds like a good way to go.

> Then test everything separately using whatever method you want, and in 
> the end you just stop MailScanner, change the symlink, and start it again.

What are some "cover the fundamentals" test methods for MailScanner?  Is
it just a matter of sending four messages: ham+novirus, spam+novirus,
ham+virus, spam+virus and making sure they're handled well?

And if I wanted to test it out by just sending something from evolution on
my office server, would I need to configure a second pair of sendmail's,
where the -bd one of the second pair was listening on an alternate port
for a while?

> Things you should consider:
> 
> 1. Do you use a database, like with mailwatch? I don't know if one thing 
> could break another.

I'll check into this, but I don't think we're using mailwatch.  Is
mailwatch useful for assessing MailScanner's health though?

> 2. Use the archive feature, albeit temporarily. You can always requeue 
> e-mail back into the system if it breaks, right?

I really like this feature.

Thanks!