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Posted to announce@spamassassin.apache.org by Theo Van Dinter <fe...@kluge.net> on 2004/09/14 04:55:57 UTC

SpamAssassin 3.0.0-rc5 RELEASED

*** THIS IS A RELEASE CANDIDATE ONLY, NOT THE FINAL 3.0.0 RELEASE ***

SpamAssassin 3.0.0-rc5 is released!  SpamAssassin 3.0.0 is a major update
and includes a number of new email and anti-spam technologies.

SpamAssassin is a mail filter which uses advanced statistical and
heuristic tests to identify spam (also known as unsolicited bulk email).

Highlights of the release
-------------------------

 - SpamAssassin is now part of the Apache Software Foundation and has an 
   improved software license, the 2.0 version of the Apache License.

 - SpamAssassin now includes support for SPF (the Sender Policy Framework,
   http://spf.pobox.com/).

 - Web site links contained in the message are checked against SURBL and
   SBL.  SURBL and SBL track sites that advertise with spam, known spam
   sources, and spam services.

 - The new 3.0 architecture allows third-parties to easily add plugin modules.

 - There is now SQL database support for both the Bayes and auto-whitelist
   modules, allowing more large sites to easily deploy SpamAssassin.

 - A more accurate simulation of email client handling of MIME and HTML
   improves our accuracy.  In addition, there is better detection and
   handling of spammer techniques that try to trick anti-spam software.

Downloading
-----------

Pick it up from:

  http://spamassassin.apache.org/released/Mail-SpamAssassin-3.0.0-rc5.tar.gz
  http://spamassassin.apache.org/released/Mail-SpamAssassin-3.0.0-rc5.tar.bz2
  http://spamassassin.apache.org/released/Mail-SpamAssassin-3.0.0-rc5.zip


md5sum:

  5c7b9637916ccff578b91a7efb657576  Mail-SpamAssassin-3.0.0-rc5.tar.bz2
  032a0336cb50c9458c7691264216c8a9  Mail-SpamAssassin-3.0.0-rc5.tar.gz
  80de4033e1dc02a61638a8f6eb9894bd  Mail-SpamAssassin-3.0.0-rc5.zip

sha1sum:

  cf76cd12b680ace39bd05ac4e86e9b1a017888c2  Mail-SpamAssassin-3.0.0-rc5.tar.bz2
  99618bdc7936c63b4654b159bd9834d643f126a2  Mail-SpamAssassin-3.0.0-rc5.tar.gz
  9765337141ea92d2016139f85d1894aec22fcd44  Mail-SpamAssassin-3.0.0-rc5.zip


The release files also have a .asc accompanying them.  The file serves
as an external GPG signature for the given release file.  The signing
key is available via the wwwkeys.pgp.net key server, as well as
http://spamassassin.apache.org/released/GPG-SIGNING-KEY

The key information is:

pub  1024D/265FA05B 2003-06-09 SpamAssassin Signing Key <re...@spamassassin.org>
     Key fingerprint =3D 26C9 00A4 6DD4 0CD5 AD24  F6D7 DEE0 1987 265F A05B

Important installation notes
----------------------------

- The SpamAssassin 2.6x release series was the last set of releases to
  officially support perl versions earlier than perl 5.6.1.  If you are
  using an earlier version of perl, you will need to upgrade before you
  can use the 3.0.0 version of SpamAssassin.

- SpamAssassin 3.0.0 has a significantly different API (Application
  Program Interface) from the 2.x series of code.  This means that if you
  use SpamAssassin through a third-party utility (milter, etc,) you need
  to make sure you have an updated version which supports 3.0.0.

- The --auto-whitelist and -a options for "spamd" and "spamassassin" to
  turn on the auto-whitelist have been removed and replaced by the
  "use_auto_whitelist" configuration option which is also now turned on by
  default.

- The "rewrite_subject" and "subject_tag" configuration options were
  deprecated and are now removed. Instead, using "rewrite_header Subject
  [your desired setting]".  e.g.

    rewrite_subject 1
    subject_tag ****SPAM(_SCORE_)****

  becomes

    rewrite_header Subject ****SPAM(_SCORE_)****

- The Bayesian storage modules have been completely re-written and now
  include Berkeley DB (DBM) storage as well as SQL based storage (see
  sql/README.bayes for more information).  In addition, a new format has
  been introduced for the bayes database that stores tokens in fixed
  length hashes.  All DBM databases should be automatically converted to
  this new format the first time they are opened for write.  You can
  manually perform the upgrade by running "sa-learn --sync" from the
  command line.

  The "sa-learn --rebuild" command has been deprecated; please use
  "sa-learn --sync" instead.  The --rebuild option will remain temporarily
  for backwards compatibility.

- "spamd" now has a default max-children setting of 5; no more than 5
  child scanner processes will be run in parallel.  Previously, there was
  no default limit unless you specified the "-m" switch when starting
  spamd.

- If you are using a UNIX machine with all database files on local disks,
  and no sharing of those databases across NFS filesystems, you can use a
  more efficient, but non-NFS-safe, locking mechanism.   Do this by adding
  the line "lock_method flock" to the /etc/mail/spamassassin/local.cf
  file. This is strongly recommended if you're not using NFS, as it is
  much faster than the NFS-safe locker.

- Please note that the use of the following command line parameters for
  spamassassin and spamd have been deprecated and are now removed.  If you
  currently use these flags, please remove them:

    in the 2.6x series: --add-from, --pipe, -F, -P, --stop-at-threshold, -S
    in the 3.0.x series: --auto-whitelist, -a

- The following flags are deprecated and will be removed in a future major
  release: --whitelist-factory, -M, --warning-from, -w, --log-to-mbox, -l.

- SpamAssassin runs in "taint mode" by default for improved security.
  Certain third-party modules, such as Razor v2, may be incompatible with
  taint mode. For Razor v2, you will need to be using v2.40 of
  razor-agents or higher which allows taint mode by default.  Earlier
  versions which are patched to allow taint mode may be used as well.

- Finally, 2.6x deprecated the use of the "check_bayes_db" script, and it
  is now no longer available.  Please see the sa-learn man/pod
  documentation for more info.

Summary of major changes since 2.6x
-----------------------------------

Licensing:

  - Relicensed using Apache License v2.0, instead of dual GPL/PAL licensing,
    since we are now an Apache Incubator project.

New rules:

  - SPF testing, if the Mail::SPF::Query module is installed.

  - added new rules and code to combat Bayes poisoning text and random
    hash-busters; Habeas rules now verify against the Habeas user
    list, to combat forged marks used in spam.

  - URIDNSBL rules.  These do DNSBL lookups on URLs, allowing URLs found
    in the message body to be used in spam determination.  Added the SURBL
    blocklist (http://www.surbl.org/).

  - Spamhaus XBL and a variety of new DNSBL rules

  - Hashcash support.

  - added Bob Menschel's 'longwords' rules

  - added 'backhair' rule, technique based on Jennifer Wheeler's ruleset

  - added Matt Kettler's 'antidrug' ruleset

  - added anti-fraud rules from Matt Yackley

  - added some hostname-based blocklist tests based on the envelope
    sender address.

  - a *lot* of other new rules, too many to detail here

Spamd:

  - spamd now uses a 'preforking' model instead of 'fork per message'.

  - new log format, detailing message-id, resent-message-id, the tests hit,
    autolearn status, and several other things in a mass-check compatible
    format, to provide more information for spamd log-summarizer scripts.

Infrastructure:

  - Plugins.  Third-party modules can now be written and loaded dynamically
    from inside SpamAssassin, to provide support for entirely new rule types
    or eval tests.

  - SQL support for Bayes and AWL storage, thanks to Michael Parker.
    See sql/README.bayes and sql/README.awl for additional information.

  - ground-up rewrite of the MIME parser.  Now deals correctly with complex
    MIME structures, including entire message/rfc822 message attachments.

  - rules can now test the "MAIL FROM:" address used in the SMTP transaction,
    if it was logged to the message headers, using the "EnvelopeFrom"
    pseudoheader.  This allows rules such as SPF to be applied.

  - Added optional faster but NFS-unsafe Bayes locking mechanism, using
    "lock_method flock"

  - support for parsing mbx mailboxes, as used by UW IMAP. Thanks to John
    Newman for this patch.

  - refactored configuration parser to split parser code from configuration
    settings.

  - Bayes databases can now be backed up and restored using --backup and
    --restore.

  - Config files can now include other files using the "include" command.

  - replaced GA-based evolver with fast Perceptron score generation tool by
    Henry Stern; scores can now be generated much more quickly.

  - The "spamassassin" script can now check collections of mail en masse.  This
    lets us do things like 'spamassassin -d --mbox file1' and have the
    functionality go over the entire mbox file. same for checks, adding to
    white/black-lists, etc.

  - Windows support improved.

Translations: 

  - Dutch translation, thanks to Jesse Houwing

  - Polish translations from Jerzy Szczudlowski and radek at alter dot pl

  - French translations, Michel Bouissou

  - German translations, Klaus Heinz

Re: SpamAssassin 3.0.0-rc5 RELEASED

Posted by Daniel Quinlan <qu...@pathname.com>.
Robert Menschel <Ro...@Menschel.net> writes:

> I had had no problem with make / make test under rc2, rc3, rc4 (rc4 was
> re-installed and "make test" rerun successfully following my cygwin/perl
> upgrade to the current levels).

Hmmm... none of that code changed and it works here, so it's likely to
be a local, possibly transient, error.
 
> I had been trying to install rbldnsd to speed SURBL tests, but as far as
> I can tell nothing of those attempts were active, and nothing there
> should have interfered with this SA install.

It wouldn't surprise me if that were it.

> t/dnsbl.t                 22   18  81.82%  1-18
> t/spf.t                    2    2 100.00%  1-2
> 
> My attempt on Saturday to do a weekly mass-check from svn did seem to run
> network tests OK, so my network definitions seem like they should be OK.
> 
> Following "make install", local tests against my heavily customized
> user_prefs had no problem.
> 
> What can I do to help diagnose these test errors?

Hmmm... you can try running "nslookup" or "host" on a host that's
expected to work (if that fails it's really broken), then try perl on
the command line to test Net::DNS (if that fails, it's probably
Perl-specific).

An A record lookup on 14.35.17.212.dnsbltest.spamassassin.org should
return 127.0.0.1.

$ host 14.35.17.212.dnsbltest.spamassassin.org
14.35.17.212.dnsbltest.spamassassin.org has address 127.0.0.1

$ perl -e 'use Net::DNS; $r = Net::DNS::Resolver->new; $q = $r->search("14.35.17.212.dnsbltest.spamassassin.org"); if ($q) { for ($q->answer) { print $_->address . "\n" if $_->type eq "A"; } }'
127.0.0.1

You can put that into a script too if quoting doesn't behave on Windows.

Maybe this should be on the Wiki.

-- 
Daniel Quinlan
http://www.pathname.com/~quinlan/

Re: SpamAssassin 3.0.0-rc5 RELEASED

Posted by Robert Menschel <Ro...@Menschel.net>.
Hello Theo, development team,

Monday, September 13, 2004, 7:55:57 PM, you wrote:

TVD> *** THIS IS A RELEASE CANDIDATE ONLY, NOT THE FINAL 3.0.0 RELEASE ***

TVD> SpamAssassin 3.0.0-rc5 is released!  ...

Windows XP Home Edition Ver 5.1 Build 2600 Service Pack 2
    Cygwin DLL version info:
        DLL version: 1.5.11
        Build date: Sat Sep 4 23:17:09 EDT 2004
        Shared id: cygwin1S4
Using perl 5.8.5

I had had no problem with make / make test under rc2, rc3, rc4 (rc4 was
re-installed and "make test" rerun successfully following my cygwin/perl
upgrade to the current levels).

Downloaded the zip version to my Cygwin system.
Completely removed my Mail-SpamAssassin-3.0.0 directory and all
subdirectories.
Expanded with WinZip
Did: perl Makefile.PL -- all OK
Did: make             -- all OK
Did: make test        -- several failures

t/dnsbl.....................    Not found: P_2 =
    <dns:134.88.73.210.dnsbltest.spamassassin.org> [127.0.0.4]
# Failed test 1 in t/SATest.pm at line 530
t/dnsbl.....................NOK 1       Not found: P_7 =
    <dns:134.88.73.210.sb.dnsbltest.spamassassin.org?type=TXT>
# Failed test 2 in t/SATest.pm at line 530 fail #2
        Not found: P_4 =  <dns:14.35.17.212.dnsbltest.spamassassin.org>
        [127.0.0.1, 127.0.0.1] t/dnsbl.....................NOK 2 
# Failed test 3 in t/SATest.pm at line 530 fail #3
t/dnsbl.....................NOK 3Not found: P_3 =
    <dns:18.13.119.61.dnsbltest.spamassassin.org> [127.0.0.12]
# Failed test 4 in t/SATest.pm at line 530 fail #4
        Not found: P_5 =
        <dns:226.149.120.193.dnsbltest.spamassassin.org> [127.0.0.1] 
# Failed test 5 in t/SATest.pm at line 530 fail #5
Not found: P_6 =  <dns:example.com.dnsbltest.spamassassin.org>
    [127.0.0.2] t/dnsbl.....................NOK 5
# Failed test 7 in t/SATest.pm at line 530 fail #7
t/dnsbl.....................NOK 6       Not found: P_15 =  DNSBL_RHS
# Failed test 8 in t/SATest.pm at line 530 fail #8
t/dnsbl.....................NOK 7       Not found: P_17 =  DNSBL_SB_FLOAT
     # Failed test 9 in t/SATest.pm at line 530 fail #9
t/dnsbl.Not found: P_18 =  DNSBL_SB_STR
t/dnsbl.....................NOK 9# Failed test 10 in t/SATest.pm at line 530 fail #10
        Not found: P_16 =  DNSBL_SB_TIME
t/dnsbl.....................NOK 10# Failed test 11 in t/SATest.pm at line 530 fail #11
        Not found: P_10 =  DNSBL_TEST_DYNAMIC
t/dnsbl.....................NOK 11# Failed test 12 in t/SATest.pm at line 530 fail #12
        Not found: P_12 =  DNSBL_TEST_RELAY
t/dnsbl.....................NOK 12# Failed test 13 in t/SATest.pm at line 530 fail #13
t/dnsbl.Not found: P_11 =  DNSBL_TEST_SPAM
# Failed test 14 in t/SATest.pm at line 530 fail #14
Not found: P_8 =  DNSBL_TEST_TOP t/dnsbl.....................NOK 14
# Failed test 15 in t/SATest.pm at line 530 fail #15
Not found: P_9 =  DNSBL_TEST_WHITELIST t/dnsbl.....................NOK 15
# Failed test 16 in t/SATest.pm at line 530 fail #16
Not found: P_14 =  DNSBL_TXT_RE t/dnsbl.....................NOK 16
# Failed test 17 in t/SATest.pm at line 530 fail #17
     t/dnsbl.....................NOK 17Not found: P_13 =  DNSBL_TXT_TOP
# Failed test 18 in t/SATest.pm at line 530 fail #18
t/dnsbl.....................FAILED tests 1-18
        Failed 18/22 tests, 18.18% okay

I had been trying to install rbldnsd to speed SURBL tests, but as far as
I can tell nothing of those attempts were active, and nothing there
should have interfered with this SA install.

"netstat -nr" looks normal:
Route Table
===========================================================================
Interface List
0x1 ........................... MS TCP Loopback interface
0x2 ...00 0c 6e b0 70 1f ...... Realtek RTL8139/810x Family Fast Ethernet NIC #2 - Packet Scheduler Miniport
===========================================================================
===========================================================================
Active Routes:
Network Destination        Netmask          Gateway       Interface  Metric
          0.0.0.0          0.0.0.0      192.168.1.1   192.168.1.100       20
        127.0.0.0        255.0.0.0        127.0.0.1       127.0.0.1       1
      192.168.1.0    255.255.255.0    192.168.1.100   192.168.1.100       20
    192.168.1.100  255.255.255.255        127.0.0.1       127.0.0.1       20
    192.168.1.255  255.255.255.255    192.168.1.100   192.168.1.100       20
        224.0.0.0        240.0.0.0    192.168.1.100   192.168.1.100       20
  255.255.255.255  255.255.255.255    192.168.1.100   192.168.1.100       1
Default Gateway:       192.168.1.1
===========================================================================
Persistent Routes:
  None

then later,

t/spf.......................  Not found: helo_pass =  SPF_HELO_PASS
# Failed test 1 in t/SATest.pm at line 530
                              Not found: pass =  SPF_PASS
t/spf.......................FAILED tests 1-2                                 ail #2
Failed 2/2 tests, 0.00% okay
(these may be garbled because of scrolling errors)

Failed Test Stat Wstat Total Fail  Failed  List of Failed
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
t/dnsbl.t                 22   18  81.82%  1-18
t/spf.t                    2    2 100.00%  1-2

My attempt on Saturday to do a weekly mass-check from svn did seem to run
network tests OK, so my network definitions seem like they should be OK.

Following "make install", local tests against my heavily customized
user_prefs had no problem.

What can I do to help diagnose these test errors?