[Gllug] Continued spamassassin strangeness

[Nix]

On Fri, 24 Dec 2004, Adrian McMenamin suggested tentatively:
> It is running as 'nobody' - I wasn't aware that had an impact on
> permissions, I thought nobody was just another shell-less user. The
> files are now root.nobody but it is still not working :(

OK. Things we need to know before the cause is clear:

- are you running spamd/spamc, or spamassassin(1)?
- who is the owner of the shared bayes files, and what
  are the permissions on those files?
- what does `file' report on those files? (This should
  report Berkeley DB version and such things)
- if you're running spamd and spamc, how are you invoking
  each of them?
- what user does spamd end up running as?

Generally, for non-database-config configurations, you want spamd to run
as `root', so that it can read per-user configuration files and write
per-user bayes databases; the best way to do shared Bayes databases
these days is to put them in a MySQL database (or a PostgreSQL one in
SpamAssassin 3.1). That way, you have no permissions problems.

If spamd runs as non-root and uses a Bayes database that isn't in a
MySQL database, then you must use a shared Bayes database owned and
writable by the user that spamd runs as, and your users' per-user config
files must be readable by that user. If your Bayes DB permissions are
wrong, you'll see exactly what you're seeing.


You also get strange errors if your Perl DB_File module is built against
a different version of Berkeley DB than it's running against.

-- 
`The sword we forged has turned upon us
 Only now, at the end of all things do we see
 The lamp-bearer dies; only the lamp burns on.'
-- 
Gllug mailing list  -  Gllug at gllug.org.uk
http://lists.gllug.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/gllug