Andrew wrote: > Bowie Bailey wrote: > > Andrew wrote: > > > > > I've written a Howto document describing my SpamAssassin setup. I > > > have a site-wide configuration using spamd/spamc with Bayesian and > > > auto-whitelist data in a MySQL database. If anyone is interested > > > in having a look, you can find it here: > > > > > > http://www.arda.homeunix.net/spamassassin.html > > > > > > Of course, constructive feedback is always welcome. > > > > > > I scanned through the document and found it to be good overall. I > > do have just a few comments. > > > > 1) The default value for required_score is 5, not 8. > > You're right. I was thinking of a SquirrelMail plugin that sets the > required_score to 8 by default. I'll fix this up. > > > > > 2) I highly recommend enabling DCC and Razor2. > > I've used DCC in the past but not Razor2. I stopped using DCC because > my server was taking a long time to process each email message. > Dropping DCC shaved half a second off the average processing time. > There hasn't been a noticable change in the amount of spam getting > through after I stopped using DCC.
I use Razor2, DCC, and Pyzor. I would rank Razor2 as the most helpful, then DCC, and then Pyzor. Razor2 hits more spam than anything else on the system. > > 3) This may be a difference between FreeBSD and CentOS, but > > sa-update ran just fine for me with no other arguments. > > No other arguments? Other than what? What I meant to say was NO arguments. I simply run 'sa-update'. > > 4) Since this is meant to be a howto, you might want to mention that > > sa-update will frequently fail on the first attempt leaving a > > crippled SA install. A second attempt will download the rules > > properly. (or has this problem been fixed now?) > > I can't say too much about this because it didn't happen to me. > sa-update worked first time. Can you point me to a document that > describes the failure? I don't know of a document, I just know that this has happened to me on every machine I have built. I have also seen several discussions on this list about SA failing after an attempted sa-update. Apparently it is related to the updated rules directory not existing on the first run. What happens is that it creates the directory, but does not populate it. This causes SA to attempt to read it's rules from the new directory, but since there are no rules there, you get an extremely stripped-down SA. The second sa-update run has always succeeded for me. > > 5) Also, the rule files from sa-update have a minor problem with a > > variable not being set properly. To fix this, you should specify > > report_contact in your local.cf file. > > I talk about setting report_contact in the SpamAssassin Setup section > of my document. I specifically say that I have to set it manually > because I use sa-update. I must have missed that. > > Apart from these minor points, it is a good howto. I'm sure it > > will come in handy for new users. > > > > Thanks for the feedback. No problem. -- Bowie
