multiple different copies of spamd running

["Gary W. Smith" <ga...@primeexalia.com>]

For the purposes of development, I would like to run 5+ separate copies
of spamd on the same host to test different settings.  I would like to
be able to have a different config for each instance.  It this possible?


More specifically, I would like to test different threshold levels,
different rule sets, tie some of the instances into lookup's, etc.  My
goal is to process each incoming email against each of these instances
to see what the primary differences are.

Here is what we currently do.  We have 5 instances setup in xen, each
running with a specific config.  From the incoming MTA we make a
separate call to each remote spamd instance.  This works great but I
would like to consolidate this down to 1 server.  Performance is not an
issue as this processes only a couple dev emails at a time.

Any advice on the best approach for this? 

Gary Wayne Smith

RE: multiple different copies of spamd running

["Gary W. Smith" <ga...@primeexalia.com>]

I'll give that a try.

I know that this might sound trivial to some but we recently added a
rule to prod and our message processing time when from 1.2 seconds to
2.6 seconds, which doesn't sound like a lot but during peak we are
processing about 60k messages an hour (across 4 frontend machines).

Generally we use this to test the different configurations using the
prod config as a baseline.

Gary Wayne Smith

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Theo Van Dinter [mailto:felicity@apache.org]
> Sent: Friday, January 19, 2007 11:38 AM
> To: users@spamassassin.apache.org
> Subject: Re: multiple different copies of spamd running
> 
> On Fri, Jan 19, 2007 at 11:31:49AM -0800, Gary W. Smith wrote:
> > With that said, does anyone know how I would run 5 different copies
of
> > spamd on the same box?
> 
> Run on different ports w/ different startup parameters pointing at
> different
> config copies.
> 
> > Better question, what's the best way to create a new init script for
the
> > other spamd instances?  That's where I'm really running into a
problem
> > right now.  I know that I can start up a spamd instance with -C
> > /etc/mail/spamassassin/instanceA but when I try to put this login
into
> > an init script I run into problems on startup/shutdown killing all
of
> > the instances.
> 
> Your main problem there is probably the script looking for "spamd" and
> killing
> them all, or all of them overwriting the same pid file.   Use separate
pid
> files for each one and you should be fine.
> 
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> "Shooting an automatic weapon is like having a multiple orgasm." -
Victor
> Chao

Re: multiple different copies of spamd running

[Theo Van Dinter <fe...@apache.org>]

On Fri, Jan 19, 2007 at 11:31:49AM -0800, Gary W. Smith wrote:
> With that said, does anyone know how I would run 5 different copies of
> spamd on the same box?  

Run on different ports w/ different startup parameters pointing at different
config copies.

> Better question, what's the best way to create a new init script for the
> other spamd instances?  That's where I'm really running into a problem
> right now.  I know that I can start up a spamd instance with -C
> /etc/mail/spamassassin/instanceA but when I try to put this login into
> an init script I run into problems on startup/shutdown killing all of
> the instances.

Your main problem there is probably the script looking for "spamd" and killing
them all, or all of them overwriting the same pid file.   Use separate pid
files for each one and you should be fine.

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RE: multiple different copies of spamd running

["Gary W. Smith" <ga...@primeexalia.com>]

> > More specifically, I would like to test different threshold levels,
> > different rule sets, tie some of the instances into lookup's, etc.
My
> > goal is to process each incoming email against each of these
instances
> > to see what the primary differences are.
> 
> It sounds more like you want to use mass-check for development
purposes.
> 

Yes and no. I want to test different levels on a single message.  We
currently use this process to help us determine what the best config to
reduce FP's, etc.  I don't want to do a mass check at this time.

In out test case scripts we similate the call to postfix's filter with a
list of emails.  The filter script makes the call to each remote spamd
and logs the information for us to compare hits, failures, etc.

Everything there works fine, I just would like to run all of the spamd's
on a single host instead of 5 hosts.  In the future we might use more
than 5 different configurations at the same time.

With that said, does anyone know how I would run 5 different copies of
spamd on the same box?  

Better question, what's the best way to create a new init script for the
other spamd instances?  That's where I'm really running into a problem
right now.  I know that I can start up a spamd instance with -C
/etc/mail/spamassassin/instanceA but when I try to put this login into
an init script I run into problems on startup/shutdown killing all of
the instances.

Makes sense?

Re: multiple different copies of spamd running

[Theo Van Dinter <fe...@apache.org>]

On Fri, Jan 19, 2007 at 11:17:37AM -0800, Gary W. Smith wrote:
> For the purposes of development, I would like to run 5+ separate copies
> of spamd on the same host to test different settings.  I would like to
> be able to have a different config for each instance.  It this possible?

Sure.

> More specifically, I would like to test different threshold levels,
> different rule sets, tie some of the instances into lookup's, etc.  My
> goal is to process each incoming email against each of these instances
> to see what the primary differences are.

It sounds more like you want to use mass-check for development purposes.

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