Been running, testing, re-installing and rebooting a lot of times since my post above.
I've noted that in /etc/cron.daily/spamassassin there is umask 022 to updated the spam assassin rules, and consistently "the system" will fail to install or fall over if login.defs is changed to 027 on reboot or re-installation. Interestingly I have it now where everything is owned but root in the spam assassin folder ls -l spamassassin/ -a total 60 drwxr-xr-x 4 root root 4096 Sep 26 07:12 . drwxr-xr-x 108 root root 12288 Sep 29 07:54 .. -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 939 Jan 28 2015 65_debian.cf -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 1289 Jan 28 2015 init.pre -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 2213 Jan 28 2015 local.cf -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 118 Jan 28 2015 sa-compile.pre drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 4096 Sep 22 18:15 sa-update-hooks.d drwx------ 2 root root 4096 Sep 26 07:12 sa-update-keys -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 2524 Jan 28 2015 v310.pre -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 1194 Jan 28 2015 v312.pre -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 2416 Jan 28 2015 v320.pre -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 1237 Jan 28 2015 v330.pre -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 1020 Jan 28 2015 v340.pre from a purge and install and everything works as long as /etc/login.defs is set to 022, so it looks like the upgrade/ install problems solely come out of an sa-compile and possibly sa-update not having a umask 022 set in the dpkg scripts with no permission checks on /var/lib/spamassassin/3.004000 and /var/lib/spamassassin/compiled from legacy installed (mine being owned "now" by debian-spamd). The cron job script provides a good guide as to previous permission issues having been identified and fixed. -- You received this bug notification because you are a member of Ubuntu Bugs, which is subscribed to Ubuntu. https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/1313133 Title: sa-compile error on ubuntu 14.04 LTS upgrade To manage notifications about this bug go to: https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/spamassassin/+bug/1313133/+subscriptions -- ubuntu-bugs mailing list ubuntu-bugs@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-bugs