Permission denied at ///Library/Perl/5.8.1/Mail/SpamAssassin.pm line

[rk...@raeinternet.com]

On OS X running 2.64 in debug, what does this error mean and is this a
known issue?

Aug 20 18:06:02 localhost spamd[1631]: debug: mkdir
/var/empty/.spamassassin failed: mkdir /var/empty/.spamassassin:
Permission denied at ///Library/Perl/5.8.1/Mail/SpamAssassin.pm line
1279  No such file or directory

The file and all the directories exist and are readable by all.  I see
nothing at line 1279.

Re: Permission denied at ///Library/Perl/5.8.1/Mail/SpamAssassin.pm

[Matt Kettler <mk...@evi-inc.com>]

At 06:46 PM 8/20/2004, rkudyba@raeinternet.com wrote:
>Aug 20 18:06:02 localhost spamd[1631]: debug: mkdir
>/var/empty/.spamassassin failed: mkdir /var/empty/.spamassassin:
>Permission denied at ///Library/Perl/5.8.1/Mail/SpamAssassin.pm line
>1279  No such file or directory
>
>The file and all the directories exist and are readable by all.  I see
>nothing at line 1279.

The directories need to have full RWX permissions to the userID spamd is 
running as.. They must be able to create, write, and delete files. 

Re: Permission denied at ///Library/Perl/5.8.1/Mail/SpamAssassin.pm line 1279

[Ryan Thompson <ry...@sasknow.com>]

rkudyba@raeinternet.com wrote to spamassassin-users@incubator.apache.org:

> On OS X running 2.64 in debug, what does this error mean and is this a
> known issue?
>
> Aug 20 18:06:02 localhost spamd[1631]: debug: mkdir
> /var/empty/.spamassassin failed: mkdir /var/empty/.spamassassin:
> Permission denied at ///Library/Perl/5.8.1/Mail/SpamAssassin.pm line
> 1279  No such file or directory
>
> The file and all the directories exist and are readable by all.  I see
> nothing at line 1279.

/var/empty is, as the name suggests, supposed to stay empty (i.e., you
don't want spamd to be making directories and saving user preferences to
/var/empty/.spamassassin, as it appears is happening, here). This isn't
specific to OSX.

My hunch is that the user who spamassassin is running as (or making user
preferences for) has their home directory set to /var/empty. (Probably
set that way because they're not a login user. Arguably, it's better is
to use the de-facto standard /nonexistent as their home, as many things
tend to fail a little more gracefully if the user's home directory
simply does not exist. In your case, it exists, but it isn't writable,
so you get complaints from spamd).

Either:
     a) Give the user a valid home directory
or  b) Don't use user preferences (if you're trying for a
        site-wide setup). Supply -x to spamd in this case.

Hope this helps,
- Ryan

-- 
   Ryan Thompson <ry...@sasknow.com>

   SaskNow Technologies - http://www.sasknow.com
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