Updating spamassassin rules using sa-update

[Socrates]

Hi all,

The installation for spamassassin suggests to run sa-update from a cronjob regularly to update the spamd with new rules once in a while, however, the manual for sa-update says the following:

Note that "sa-update" will not restart "spamd" or otherwise cause a scanner to reload the now-updated ruleset automatically.

Instead, "sa-update" is typically used in something like the following manner:

sa-update && /etc/init.d/spamassassin reload

I've installed spamassassin version 3.3.1 using the spam.sh script as found in /usr/local/directadmin/scripts but this changes only /etc/init.d/exim startup script. I'm running debian 5.0.

As the exim reload command only reloads exim and not spamd this doesn't work either.

I think either the exim init script should be changed or a separate spamassassin script should be used which uses the --pidfile= option of spamd so we can do a kill -HUP to that pid on reload (spamd supports this).

What would be directadmin supported way of doing this?

 

[Socrates]

I've decided to use the debian init scripts with some minor adjustments (since I'm using debian 5.0) to start/stop/reload the spamassassin. I've shamelessly ripped these out of the package spamassassin_3.2.5-2+lenny2_all.deb and thank the maintainer of the debian package for his work.

First I've installed the init script in /etc/init.d/spamassassin which is as follows

#! /bin/sh

### BEGIN INIT INFO
# Provides:       spamassassin
# Required-Start: $remote_fs
# Required-Stop:  $remote_fs
# Should-Start:   $network $syslog
# Default-Start:  2 3 4 5
# Default-Stop:   0 1 6
### END INIT INFO

# Spamd init script
# June 2002
# Duncan Findlay

# Based on skeleton by Miquel van Smoorenburg and Ian Murdock

PATH=/sbin:/bin:/usr/sbin:/usr/bin
DAEMON=/usr/bin/spamd
NAME=spamd
SNAME=spamassassin
DESC="SpamAssassin Mail Filter Daemon"
PIDFILE="/var/run/$NAME.pid"
XNAME=/usr/bin/perl

export TMPDIR=/tmp
# Apparently people have trouble if this isn't explicitly set...

# Defaults - don't touch, edit /etc/default/spamassassin
ENABLED=0
OPTIONS=""
NICE=

test -f /etc/default/spamassassin && . /etc/default/spamassassin

DOPTIONS="-d --pidfile=$PIDFILE"

if [ "$ENABLED" = "0" ]; then
    echo "$DESC: disabled, see /etc/default/spamassassin"
    exit 0
fi

test -f $DAEMON || exit 0

set -e

case "$1" in
  start)
	echo -n "Starting $DESC: "
	start-stop-daemon --start --pidfile $PIDFILE --exec $XNAME \
	    $NICE --oknodo --startas $DAEMON -- $OPTIONS $DOPTIONS
	echo "$NAME."
	;;

  stop)
	echo -n "Stopping $DESC: "
	start-stop-daemon --stop --pidfile $PIDFILE --exec $XNAME --oknodo
	echo "$NAME."
	;;

  reload|force-reload)
	echo -n "Reloading $DESC: "
	start-stop-daemon --stop --pidfile $PIDFILE --signal HUP --exec $XNAME
	echo "$NAME."
	;;

  restart)
	echo -n "Restarting $DESC: "
	start-stop-daemon --stop --pidfile $PIDFILE --exec $XNAME \
	    --retry 5 --oknodo
	start-stop-daemon --start --pidfile $PIDFILE --exec $XNAME \
	    $NICE --oknodo --startas $DAEMON -- $OPTIONS $DOPTIONS

	echo "$NAME."
	;;

  *)
	N=/etc/init.d/$SNAME
	echo "Usage: $N {start|stop|restart|reload|force-reload}" >&2
	exit 1
	;;
esac

exit 0

Make sure this file has the execute bit set (chmod +x /etc/init.d/spamassassin).

Next I've created the file /etc/default/spamassassin as follows:

# /etc/default/spamassassin
# Duncan Findlay

# WARNING: please read README.spamd before using.
# There may be security risks.

# Change to one to enable spamd
ENABLED=1

# Options
# See man spamd for possible options. The -d option is automatically added.

# SpamAssassin uses a preforking model, so be careful! You need to
# make sure --max-children is not set to anything higher than 5,
# unless you know what you're doing.

OPTIONS="--create-prefs --max-children 15"

# Pid file
# Where should spamd write its PID to file? If you use the -u or
# --username option above, this needs to be writable by that user.
# Otherwise, the init script will not be able to shut spamd down.
PIDFILE="/var/run/spamd.pid"

# Set nice level of spamd
#NICE="--nicelevel 15"

# Cronjob
# Set to anything but 0 to enable the cron job to automatically update
# spamassassin's rules on a nightly basis
CRON=1

The third file I edited was /etc/cron.daily/spamassassin which will run our rules update using sa-update daily, the file is as follows:

#!/bin/sh

# Duncan Findlay
# [email protected]

# Daily cronjob for SpamAssassin updates. This isn't pretty but it
# should do the job.

set -e

CRON=0

test -f /etc/default/spamassassin && . /etc/default/spamassassin

test -x /usr/bin/sa-update || exit 0
test -x /etc/init.d/spamassassin || exit 0

if [ "$CRON" = "0" ] ; then
    exit 0
fi

# Sleep for up to 3600 seconds
# Taken from apticron's cron.daily
RANGE=3600
number=`od -vAn -N2 -tu4 < /dev/urandom`
number=`expr $number "%" $RANGE`
sleep $number


# Update
umask 022
sa-update || exit 0

# Compile, if rules have previously been compiled, and it's possible
if [ -x /usr/bin/re2c -a -x /usr/bin/sa-compile -a -d /var/lib/spamassassin/compiled ]; then
    sa-compile > /dev/null 2>&1
fi

# Fixup perms -- group and other should be able to read and execute, 
# but never write.  Works around sa-compile's failure to obey umask.
if [ -d /var/lib/spamassassin ]; then
    chmod -R go-w,go+rX /var/lib/spamassassin/
fi

# Reload
if which invoke-rc.d >/dev/null 2>&1; then
    invoke-rc.d spamassassin reload > /dev/null 2>&1
else
    /etc/init.d/spamassassin reload > /dev/null 2>&1
fi

The cronjob file also needs to be executable, do chmod +x /etc/cron.daily/spamassassin

Next we need to remove starting of the spamd from the exim init script, the diff for /etc/init.d/exim is as follows:

--- exim.orig	2010-04-20 10:52:17.000000000 +0200
+++ exim	2010-04-20 10:52:40.000000000 +0200
@@ -35,3 +35,2 @@
         echo
-	if [ -e /usr/bin/spamd ]; then /usr/bin/spamd -d -c -m 15 1>/dev/null 2>/dev/null; fi
         ;;
@@ -42,5 +41,2 @@
         echo
-	
-	if [ -e /usr/bin/spamd ]; then $KILLALL -9 spamd; fi
-
         ;;

And finally we add the spamassassin to the boot startup scripts using

# update-rc.d spamassassin defaults