newbie question re spam filters

locateMe

Verified User
Joined
Feb 12, 2004
Messages
44
Some time ago I installed the spam killer into Exim but I just noticed that I get the following error message in maillog

Jun 13 04:06:28 server spamc[1442]: connect(AF_INET) to spamd at 127.0.0.1 failed, retrying (#1 of 3): Connection refused

Can anyone point me in the right direction please as to what to check?

Thanks
 
Is spamd running?

ps -ax | grep spamd

If not, start it:

spamd -d

If it is, then check if you can telnet to it:

telnet 127.0.0.1 783

If not, then you have a firewall blocking it.

John
 
That's what it was - spamd wasn't running so I started it as you suggested and it seems fine.

How do I ensure that spamd starts after a reboot which I assume is why it was not running?

Many thanks

Steve
 
Edit /etc/init.d/exim and make the start section look like this:
Code:
 ...
  start)
        # Start daemons.
        echo -n "Starting exim: "
        /usr/sbin/exim $EXIM_OPTS -oP /var/run/exim.pid
        echo
        touch /var/lock/subsys/exim

        [b]if [ -e /usr/bin/spamd ]; then /usr/bin/spamd -d -a -c -m 5 1>/dev/null 2>/dev/null; fi[/b]

        ;;
 ...
John
 
Fwiw, John,

Our RHL 7.3 installations have their own /etc/rc.d/init.d/spamd file.

I don't know why/how it got installed that way, but perhaps before adding your code snippet admins should look for /etc/rc.d/init.d/spamd, and if they have it, check their /etc/rc.d/rc3.d for an *spamd link, and if they don't have one, add one, or if they have one beginning with "K" to rename it so it begins with "S".

Jeff
 
OK - me very confused :)

I did what was suggested by adding the code snippet but got confused by the last comment - I don't have a spamd in etc/rc.d/init.d with or without a k
So do I need one?

I edited etc/init.d/exim as suggested and when I did a manual start of spamd it worked so I guess that it knows where it is.

Steve
 
Don't get confused...

I just pointed out that some users might have spamd included as a separate daemon in their init.d directory as I did.

Since you didn't, you don't have to do anything, and John's fix should work fine for you.

To make sure you can stop spamd, and then try (as root):

service exim restart

and see if spamd has restarted. If it does, then it will come up automatically whenever exim does.

Jeff
 
It works but what do the extra parameters mean - I normally only had spamd -d but I now have

/usr/bin/spamd -d -a -c -m 5

Is that correct?

Thanks (again)
 
I have the same as you.

Read "man spamd" to see what the parameters do.

Jeff
 
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