[Mimedefang] HOME=/var/spool/MIMEDefang

[Kris Deugau]

Yizhar Hurwitz wrote:
> My bayes and awl databased are stored at:
> /home/defang/.spamassassin
> 
> In /etc/mail/sa-mimedefang.cf I have:
> 
> auto_whitelist_path /home/defang/.spamassassin/auto-whitelist
> bayes_path /home/defang/.spamassassin/bayes
> 
> BTW - On most of the servers, /var/spool/MIMEDefang is a ram drive.
> 
> So my question is - should I use the new suggested 
> /etc/init.d/mimedefang file "as is",
> 
> or change it to:
> 
> HOME=/home/defang (or /home/defang/.spamassassin)
> export HOME

You can *probably* use it as-is, without trouble from SA itself.

However, any *other* helper that SA may call, or that you call from MD, 
will, unless explicitly told, use /var/spool/MIMEDefang for $HOME.  On 
the whole, this is probably a good thing.

(Unless I've completely misunderstood what sort of cascading effects 
this might have.)

> I simply don't understand what is the exact effect of this settings - is 
> it used for temporary lock files and such,
> 
> or is it also used for storing SA databases such as bayes and awl?

*If* no $HOME is clearly defined, and there are no explicit paths set 
for SA's various databases, then SA will use it.  Lockfiles and other 
bits relating to the Bayes and AWL files (but not the actual database 
files themselves) will be stored in the same directory as the database 
files.

However, other helper programs and calls (Razor is or was particularly 
bad for this) will tend to spew miscellaneous data in some truly *odd* 
places if $HOME isn't well-defined.  (I have one server that accumulates 
razor.log files all over the place.  I suspect part of the problem may 
just be an outdated copy of Razor, but upgrading isn't really worth the 
effort at this point.)

-kgd