[Mimedefang] Debian squeeze postfix mimedefang

[Andris Kalnozols]

> On 6/14/2011 4:14 PM, David F. Skoll wrote:
> >> The sock file exists and is owned by postfix.
> >> mx02:/etc/postfix# ls -l /var/spool/MIMEDefang/
> >> srwxr-x--- 1 postfix postfix 0 Jun 14 15:26 mimedefang.sock
> > Could it be a transient startup problem?  How about permissions on the
> > parent directories?  Try:
> >
> >         ls -ld / /var /var/spool /var/spool/MIMEDefang
> >
> > to see if any permissions are wrong.
> 
> Jason Bertoch <jason at i6ix.com> wrote:
> While David is probably right, as he usually is, I've also found that a 
> "sleep" entry in the startup script between mimedefang and your smtp 
> server can solve this problem on busy/slow servers.  Technically, I 
> usually need to sleep between the multiplexor and mimedefang because my 
> servers aren't that slow, but the error is strikingly similar.  While 
> your logs already indicate a difference of one minute, you should ensure 
> that socket exists prior to postfix starting if permissions aren't your 
> problem.

FYI for Debian sendmail users, the same thing needed to be done on a
system running "wheezy", e.g., add the following to
`/etc/init.d/mimedefang':

    # Start mimedefang
    printf "%-59s" "Starting $prog: "
    rm -f $SOCKET > /dev/null 2>&1
    $PROGDIR/$prog -P $PID -R $LOOPBACK_RESERVED_CONNECTIONS \
    <snip>
    RETVAL=$?
    if [ $RETVAL = 0 ] ; then
+       #
+       # To avoid a warning message when sendmail is started,
+       # give some time to create the Milter socket file.
+       #
+       sleep 2
        echo "[  OK  ]"

As an additional item for Debian mimedefang/sendmail users, you may
need to tweak the ownership of a couple of files:

  * We have the following sendmail configuration item:

      # what user id do we assume for the majority of the processing?
      O RunAsUser=smmta:smmsp

  * As a consequence, the following addition/modification to
    `/etc/default/mimedefang' became necessary:

      +# Change the ownership of the default MIMEDefang working directory
      +# to what this site expects.  An upgrade of the mimedefang package
      +# will change the ownership back to the default "defang" user.
      +# This causes the startup script to fail and "apt-get" will treat
      +# the package as incompletely installed.
      +#
      +chown smmta:smmta /var/spool/MIMEDefang
      +chown smmta       /var/spool/MIMEDefang/.spamassassin

       # Run the multiplexor and filters as this user, not root.
      -# MX_USER=defang
      +MX_USER=smmta

------
Andris