maillog complaining about ownership of /var/spool/postfix

[Glenn Steen]

On 05/01/07, Kevin Bedford <kevin at univexsystems.com> wrote:
> Greetings,
>
> I appologise if this is a stupid question but I can't find any
> difference between this system and others I have that don't generate
> this message but I have not been able to find any other information on
> the problem which is as follows.
>
> The system is a new install with CentOs 4.4, Postfix, MailScanner
> Spamassassin and MailWatch.  Postfix is running chroot.  Everything
> appears ok but the maillog keeps repeating the following message:
>
> Jan  5 16:57:50 mail MailScanner[26136]: Enabling SpamAssassin
> auto-whitelist functionality...
> Jan  5 16:57:57 mail MailScanner[26136]: /var/spool/postfix is not owned
> by user 89 !
>
> User 89 by the way is postfix but according to other documentation I
> have found /var/spool/postfix should be owned by root which it is and is
> by default.  If I change this then postfix complains and dies.
>
> Here is the ownership of everything in /var/spool/postfix
>
> drwx------  2 postfix root     4096 Nov 23 04:02 active
> drwx------  2 postfix root     4096 Aug 13 08:07 bounce
> drwx------  2 postfix root     4096 Aug 13 08:07 corrupt
> drwx------  2 postfix root     4096 Aug 13 08:07 defer
> drwx------  2 postfix root     4096 Aug 13 08:07 deferred
> drwxr-xr-x  2 root    root     4096 Jan  3 20:41 etc
> drwx------  2 postfix root     4096 Aug 13 08:07 flush
> drwx------  2 postfix root     4096 Jan  5 04:02 hold
> drwx------  2 postfix root     4096 Jan  5 04:02 incoming
> drwxr-xr-x  2 root    root     4096 Nov 29 10:45 lib
> drwx-wx---  2 postfix postdrop 4096 Jan  5 04:02 maildrop
> drwxr-xr-x  2 root    root     4096 Nov 21 00:05 pid
> drwx------  2 postfix root     4096 Jan  5 17:14 private
> drwx--x---  2 postfix postdrop 4096 Jan  5 17:14 public
> drwx------  2 postfix root     4096 Aug 13 08:07 saved
> drwx------  2 postfix root     4096 Aug 13 08:07 trace
> drwxr-xr-x  3 root    root     4096 Nov 29 10:45 usr
>
> Because the ownership message always appears directly after the one
> about Enabling SpamAssassin auto-whitelist functionality I am suspicious
> that is has something to do with this.
>
> Does anyone have any ideas on the likely cause or is it something I
> should ignore?
>
> Regards
> Kevin

Hi Kevin,

It is complainig about /var/spool/postfix, not what's inside that
directory. This should be OK, normally to be owned by any user (I
suspect you'll find that it is root that owns it, and that postfix has
only read/execute perms on it), unless something (like SpamAssassin,
in this particular case) wants to create a file or directory there.
Don't change owner/permissions on that directory, since that might ...
defeat... the chroot thing.

So this is probably the same ol' thing as usual Either create a
/var/spool/postfix/.spamassassin directory owned/writable by postfix,
and/or set the "SpamAssassin User State Dir" in MailScanner.conf to
someplace writable ... and check/set the auto_whitelist things in SA
appropriately... If you want it, make sure you have the LoadPlugin in
a .pre file in /etc/mail/spamassassin, and something like

use_auto_whitelist 1
auto_whitelist_path        /var/spool/spamassassin/auto-whitelist
auto_whitelist_file_mode   0777

... in either /etc/mail/spamassassin/local.cf or
/etc/mail/mailscanner.cf ... or turn it off (if you don't want it) by
not loading the plugin in the .pre file(s).

-- 
-- Glenn
email: glenn < dot > steen < at > gmail < dot > com
work: glenn < dot > steen < at > ap1 < dot > se