[Mimedefang] Bayes errors in logfile

[Kris Deugau]

"Cormack, Ken" wrote:
> Aug 12 10:53:52 mail01 mimedefang-multiplexor[9340]: Slave 9 stderr:
> lock: 9340 unlink of temp lock
> /var/spool/MIMEDefang/bayes.lock.mail01.mydomain.com.9340 failed: No
> such file or directory

> Aug 12 10:53:52 mail01 mimedefang-multiplexor[9340]: Slave 9 stderr:
> Cannot open bayes databases /var/spool/MIMEDefang/bayes_* R/W: lock
> failed: No such file or directory

> Aug 12 11:27:12 mail01 mimedefang-multiplexor[22720]: Slave 6 stderr:
> lock: 22720 unlink of temp lock
> /var/spool/MIMEDefang/bayes.lock.mail01.mydomain.com.22720 failed: No
> such file or directory Cannot open bayes databases
> /var/spool/MIMEDefang/bayes_* R/W: lock failed: No such file or
> directory

The locking errors are usually related to Bayes autolearn and/or expiry
conflicts.  A wander through the SA list archives should turn up quite a
few threads.

> The bayes configuration lines in my sa-mimedefang.cf look like this:
> 
> # Enable Bayes
> use_bayes            1
> use_bayes_rules      1
> bayes_path           /var/spool/MIMEDefang/bayes
> bayes_file_mode      0700
> bayes_auto_learn     1
> 
> Does anyone have any ideas or suggestions?  Mail seems to be flowing,
> but I'm concerned/confused about the logged errors.

They're not really fatal errors - all they say is that one process tried
to do something to the Bayes db, but another was already doing a similar
task - learning or expiry.

You can get rid of them fairly simply.  Add these two lines to
sa-mimedefang.cf:

bayes_learn_to_journal  1
bayes_auto_expire       0

(You might want to check the man page to make sure those are valid -
there should be something similar if not.  I'm still happily running
2.64.)

Then set up a cron job to run sa-learn --rebuild --force-expire as user
defang regularly.  (For the systems I've been administering, once a day
has worked very well for several years now.)  I just use a single line
in /etc/crontab:

02 5 * * * defang /usr/bin/sa-learn --rebuild --force-expire

This isn't specific to MIMEDefang;  it applies to any sitewide
file-based Bayes setup.

-kgd
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