[Mimedefang] SA scores

[Kees Theunissen]

On Wed, 18 Oct 2006, Philip Goisman wrote:

> Date: Wed, 18 Oct 2006 10:17:22 -0400
> From: "David F. Skoll" <dfs at roaringpenguin.com>
> Subject: Re: [Mimedefang] SA scores
> To: mimedefang at lists.roaringpenguin.com
>
> Mike Lambert wrote:
>
> > In spamassassin's Makefile.PL, LOCAL_STATE_DIR is set by macro on my
> > system to "/var/lib/spamassassin". But in mimedefang.pl,
> >  LOCAL_STATE_DIR = '/var/lib'.
> >
> We should file a bug with SpamAssassin, because there is *no way* to
> determine the proper value for LOCAL_STATE_DIR unless you can get
> the output of spamassassin's configure script.
>
> Regards,
>
> David.

There *is a way* to determine the proper value for LOCAL_STATE_DIR.
I admit that it is a dirty way, but it can be done.
Just execute one of the following commands:
  grep LOCAL_STATE_DIR `which sa-update`
  grep LOCAL_STATE_DIR `which spamassassin`
  grep LOCAL_STATE_DIR `which spamd`
Parsing the output of these commands *is* prone to errors because
it depends on text formatting that can vary between SA releases.
That's why I call it a dirty way.

Determining the value of LOCAL_STATE_DIR should be done at
run time (start up time will be fine I guess) of MimeDefang.
Determining this value at install time of MimeDefang will fail
sometimes as the value varies between SA releases.

On a Slackware 10.2 Linux system with SpamAssassin 3.1.4 installed
from CPAN (I'm not absolutely sure but but I think it was a first
time installation):

  kees at lankhmar:~$ grep LOCAL_STATE_DIR `which spamassassin`
  my $LOCAL_STATE_DIR = '/var/lib';    # substituted at 'make' time
      LOCAL_STATE_DIR     => $LOCAL_STATE_DIR,

The same system, still Slackware 10.2, with SpamAssassin
upgraded from CPAN to version 3.1.7 a few minutes ago:

  kees at lankhmar:~$  grep LOCAL_STATE_DIR `which spamassassin`
  my $LOCAL_STATE_DIR = '/var/lib/spamassassin';    # substituted at
  'make' time
      LOCAL_STATE_DIR     => $LOCAL_STATE_DIR,


>
>Why not make LOCAL_STATE_DIR = '/usr/share/spamassassin'?  The directory
>"/var/lib/spamassassin" does not exist on my system - rhel4.
>
>Philip

It looks like the directory used by SA varies greatly between
installations/versions. It might be possible to fix this directory,
as far as MimeDefang is concerned, to for instance
/usr/share/spamassassin.  Some testing is needed to be sure about this.
But this has a side effect. Running spamassassin or spamd/spamc
from the commandline or running SpamAssassin from MimeDefang will
run different tests. It's your choice whether this is acceptable
or not in your situation. But I would be carefull to introduce
such a (extra) difference as a general case.

-- 
Kees Theunissen
F.O.M.-Institute for Plasma Physics Rijnhuizen, Nieuwegein, Netherlands
E-mail: theuniss at rijnh.nl,  Tel: (+31|0)306096724,  Fax: (+31|0)306031204