[Mimedefang] SpamAssassin 3.0.0-pre2 is released! (fwd)

[Kenneth Porter]

------------ Forwarded Message ------------
Date: Friday, July 09, 2004 7:54 PM -0700
From: jm at jmason.org
To: SpamAssassin-dev at incubator.apache.org
Cc: SpamAssassin-users at incubator.apache.org
Subject: SpamAssassin 3.0.0-pre2 is released!

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*** THIS IS A PRE-RELEASE ONLY, NOT THE FINAL 3.0.0 RELEASE ***

SpamAssassin 3.0.0-pre2 is released!  SpamAssassin 3.0.0 is a major update
and includes a number of new email and anti-spam technologies.

SpamAssassin is a mail filter which uses advanced statistical and
heuristic tests to identify spam (also known as unsolicited bulk email).

Highlights of the release
- -------------------------

 - SpamAssassin is now part of the Apache Software Foundation, bringing an
   improved and clearer software license, the 2.0 version of the Apache
   License.

 - We added a new architecture which allows third-parties to easily add
   plugin modules.

 - There is now SQL database support for both the Bayes and auto-whitelist
   subsystems, allowing more large sites to easily deploy SpamAssassin.

 - A more accurate simulation of email client handling of MIME and HTML
   improves our accuracy.  In addition, there is better detection and
   handling of spammer techniques used to trick email clients and filters.

 - Web sites contained in the message body are checked against network
   databases of domains that advertise with spam.

 - SpamAssassin now includes support for SPF (the Sender Policy Framework,
   http://spf.pobox.com/).

Downloading
- -----------

Pick it up from:

  http://SpamAssassin.org/released/Mail-SpamAssassin-3.0.0-pre2.tar.gz
  http://SpamAssassin.org/released/Mail-SpamAssassin-3.0.0-pre2.tar.bz2
  http://SpamAssassin.org/released/Mail-SpamAssassin-3.0.0-pre2.zip

md5sum:

  db14127b992e33af993bdf734f5c2c60  Mail-SpamAssassin-3.0.0-pre2.tar.bz2
  a43039eb487123dbc72996f6936823e0  Mail-SpamAssassin-3.0.0-pre2.tar.gz
  c490296cb3cbac4710b3c4c70ca258e3  Mail-SpamAssassin-3.0.0-pre2.zip

sha1sum:

  2e254cf8f6d8e8491776624d6080d9587240b74d
Mail-SpamAssassin-3.0.0-pre2.tar.bz2
87d13abb5ad9f311fb814acfb7cc6236e2287ea6
Mail-SpamAssassin-3.0.0-pre2.tar.gz
61467afa7aede014c804c700b48888d79b07a0fd  Mail-SpamAssassin-3.0.0-pre2.zip

The release files also have a .asc accompanying them.  The file serves
as an external GPG signature for the given release file.  The signing
key is available via the wwwkeys.pgp.net key server, as well as
http://www.spamassassin.org/released/GPG-SIGNING-KEY

The key information is:

pub  1024D/265FA05B 2003-06-09 SpamAssassin Signing Key
<release at spamassassin.o rg>
     Key fingerprint =3D 26C9 00A4 6DD4 0CD5 AD24  F6D7 DEE0 1987 265F A05B

Important installation notes
- ----------------------------

- - The SpamAssassin 2.6x release series was the last set of releases to
  officially support perl versions earlier than perl 5.6.1.  If you are
  using an earlier version of perl, you will need to upgrade before you
  can use the 3.0.0 version of SpamAssassin.

- - SpamAssassin 3.0.0 has a significantly different API (Application
  Program Interface) from the 2.x series of code.  This means that if you
  use SpamAssassin through a third-party utility (milter, etc,) you need
  to make sure you have an updated version which supports 3.0.0.

- - The --auto-whitelist and -a options for "spamd" and "spamassassin" to
  turn on the auto-whitelist have been removed and replaced by the
  "use_auto_whitelist" configuration option which is also now turned on by
  default.

- - The "rewrite_subject" configuration setting was deprecated and is now
  removed. Instead, using "rewrite_header Subject [your desired setting]".
  e.g.

    rewrite_subject ****SPAM(_SCORE_)****

  becomes

    rewrite_header Subject ****SPAM(_SCORE_)****

- - The Bayesian storage modules have been completely re-written and now
  include Berkeley DB (DBM) storage as well as SQL based storage (see
  sql/README.bayes for more information).  In addition, a new format has
  been introduced for the bayes database that stores tokens in fixed
  length hashes.  All DBM databases should be automatically converted to
  this new format the first time they are opened for write.  You can
  manually perform the upgrade by running "sa-learn --sync" from the
  command line.

  The "sa-learn --rebuild" command has been deprecated; please use
  "sa-learn --sync" instead.  The --rebuild option will remain temporarily
  for backwards compatibility.

- - "spamd" now has a default max-children setting of 5; no more than 5
  child scanner processes will be run in parallel.  Previously, there was
  no default limit unless you specified the "-m" switch when starting
  spamd.

- - If you are using a UNIX machine with all database files on local disks,
  and no sharing of those databases across NFS filesystems, you can use a
  more efficient, but non-NFS-safe, locking mechanism.   Do this by adding
  the line "lock_method flock" to the /etc/mail/spamassassin/local.cf
  file. This is strongly recommended if you're not using NFS, as it is
  much faster than the NFS-safe locker.

- - Please note that the use of the following command line parameters for
  spamassassin and spamd have been deprecated and are now removed.  If you
  currently use these flags, please remove them:

    in the 2.6x series: --add-from, --pipe, -F, -P, --stop-at-threshold, -S
    in the 3.0.x series: --auto-whitelist, -a

- - The following flags are deprecated and will be removed in a future major
  release: --whitelist-factory, -M, --warning-from, -w, --log-to-mbox, -l.

- - SpamAssassin runs in "taint mode" by default for improved security.
  Certain third-party modules, such as Razor v2, may be incompatible with
  taint mode. For Razor v2, you will need to be using v2.40 of
  razor-agents or higher which allows taint mode by default.  Earlier
  versions which are patched to allow taint mode may be used as well.

- - Finally, 2.6x deprecated the use of the "check_bayes_db" script, and it
  is now no longer available.  Please see the sa-learn man/pod
  documentation for more info.

Summary of major changes since 2.6x
- -----------------------------------

Licensing:

  - Relicensed using Apache License v2.0, instead of dual GPL/PAL licensing,
    since we are now an Apache Incubator project.

New rules:

  - SPF testing, if the Mail::SPF::Query module is installed.

  - added new rules and code to combat Bayes poisoning text and random
    hash-busters; Habeas rules now verify against the Habeas user
    list, to combat forged marks used in spam.

  - URIDNSBL rules.  These do DNSBL lookups on URLs, allowing URLs found
    in the message body to be used in spam determination.  Added the SURBL
    blocklist (http://www.surbl.org/).

  - Spamhaus XBL and a variety of new DNSBL rules

  - Hashcash support.

  - added Bob Menschel's 'longwords' rules

  - added 'backhair' rule, technique based on Jennifer Wheeler's ruleset

  - added Matt Kettler's 'antidrug' ruleset

  - added anti-fraud rules from Matt Yackley

  - added some hostname-based blocklist tests based on the envelope
    sender address.

  - a *lot* of other new rules, too many to detail here

Spamd:

  - spamd now uses a 'preforking' model instead of 'fork per message'.

  - new log format, detailing message-id, resent-message-id, the tests hit,
    autolearn status, and several other things in a mass-check compatible
    format, to provide more information for spamd log-summarizer scripts.

Infrastructure:

  - Plugins.  Third-party modules can now be written and loaded dynamically
    from inside SpamAssassin, to provide support for entirely new rule types
    or eval tests.

  - SQL support for Bayes and AWL storage, thanks to Michael Parker.
    See sql/README.bayes and sql/README.awl for additional information.

  - ground-up rewrite of the MIME parser.  Now deals correctly with complex
    MIME structures, including entire message/rfc822 message attachments.

  - rules can now test the "MAIL FROM:" address used in the SMTP
transaction,     if it was logged to the message headers, using the
"EnvelopeFrom"     pseudoheader.  This allows rules such as SPF to be
applied.

  - Added optional faster but NFS-unsafe Bayes locking mechanism, using
    "lock_method flock"

  - support for parsing mbx mailboxes, as used by UW IMAP. Thanks to John
    Newman for this patch.

  - refactored configuration parser to split parser code from configuration
    settings.

  - Bayes databases can now be backed up and restored using --backup and
    --restore.

  - Config files can now include other files using the "include" command.

  - replaced GA-based evolver with fast Perceptron score generation tool by
    Henry Stern; scores can now be generated much more quickly.

  - The "spamassassin" script can now check collections of mail en masse.
This     lets us do things like 'spamassassin -d --mbox file1' and have the
    functionality go over the entire mbox file. same for checks, adding to
    white/black-lists, etc.

Translations:

  - Dutch translation, thanks to Jesse Houwing

  - Polish translations from Jerzy Szczudlowski and radek at alter dot pl

  - French translations, Michel Bouissou

  - German translations, Daniel Roethlisberger

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