Upgrading Spamassassin from 3.1.0 to 3.1.7

[PeteF]

Ok guys I think I got it now.
I successfully uploaded my sample Eudora HAM.mbx and SPAM.mbx
files to my Westhost account and ran the sa-learn thing on them.
It was not straight forward but it seems to have run successfully.

Allow me a couple of days to continue testing and I'll post
my results and all the details of the procedure required to
do all this.

Thanks again for all the help!
The leads you provided allowed me to figure it all out

---pete---

[wildjokerdesign]

Just as an add-on to what you have already figured out. There is an entry in the WestHost manual on the basics of SSH. WH Manual SSH

It has a link to setting up Putty specifically and to some common SSH commands.

When you log in useing Putty you are taken to the home directory of the user instead of the root of your VPS like when you log in via FTP. That means in reality you are in /usr/home/username. Your "prompt" would look something like this:

[username][~]$

username is replaced by your actual username ofcourse. By default your cursor location on the screen is indicated by a lime green box.

If you want to copy some of the text you see on the screen when you are in Putty all you have to do is highlight it. As Pete figured out to paste something you simply right click. It took me some time to figure that one out and it can be handy if you are trying to communicate with someone else what happened in a session.

For the longest time I was terrified of useing SSH but it really can be very handy and as Pete has found out is essential for some things.

There is actually a program called WinSCP that works in conjuction with Putty that has it code based on Putty. It works much like an FTP program and I use it instead of an FTP program to upload files and manage things on my account.

WinSCP is an open source SFTP client for Windows. Its main function is the secure file transfer between a local and a remote computer. Beyond this, WinSCP offers basic file manager functionality. It uses Secure Shell (SSH) and supports, in addition to Secure FTP, also legacy SCP protocol.

This might be something for you to look at Pete on another day.

[jalal]

Also Pete, if you follow the link in my sig, you'll find that I've written up some of what we've been talking about here, including setting up and using Putty.

When I answer questions, I have no idea what skill level you are at, so have a little patience if it seems over your head.

[PeteF]

Also Pete, if you follow the link in my sig, you'll find that I've written up some of what we've been talking about here, including setting up and using Putty.

jalal,
I was reading from the link in your sig and came
across the following paragraph...

Excerpt from... http://codeworks.gnomedia.com/westho...-and-updating/

SpamAssassin works by analysing each email and comparing the various headers and message bodies against a sample set of strings. So spam senders are constantly changing the strings in their emails to stay one step ahead of SpamAssassin’s rules. This makes it essential to keep the rules database up to date.

My question is; Other than updating to the latest released version,
how does one keep the SpamAssassin rules up to date?

---pete---

[wildjokerdesign]

Pete,
I found this site that may help you understand SA and what can be done.
http://wiki.apache.org/spamassassin/

There is more info at the site but normally you add rules to /etc/mail/spamassassin/ directory. On our VPS that is actually a link to /usr/local/perl/etc/mail/spamassassin/ which is where the file local.cf is located that is mentioned on the above site.

[wildjokerdesign]

jalal,

The link you have to the RulesDuJour on your site was not working for me when I last had a look. I did a google search and found this link to a copy of it and was wondering if it was the same thing.

I just found this site on How to get, install and configure Rules Du Jour.

[jalal]

Hi Shawn

Thanks for the info... the whole RulesEmporium site seems to have moved and reappeared here: http://www.rulesemporium.com/ and they link to Rules du Jour. But I'm also going to look into sa-update (http://daryl.dostech.ca/sa-update/sa...date-howto.txt) as an alternative.

I notice a few other things that need updating on that page, so I'll check the links as well.

cheers, jalal

[jalal]

My question is; Other than updating to the latest released version,
how does one keep the SpamAssassin rules up to date?

Hi Pete.

Either by writing your own rules or getting rules from other people.

The Rules Emporium (http://www.rulesemporium.com/) contains the SARE rules kit, which is what I use on many servers. Also, using Google and doing a search for terms like 'spamassassin rules' or 'spamassassin rulessets' will also give you lots of good pointers, both to writing your own, and installing others.

HTH

[wildjokerdesign]

jalal,

Do you use the default install of SA that WH provides at all or do you always manually install. The reason I ask is I know that the WH install takes advantage of some rulesets and wonder how useing the SARE rulesets update you linked to would affect a default WH SA install? I took a look at it and it seems very painless and straight forward.

[jalal]

Do you use the default install of SA that WH provides at all or do you always manually install...

Heh, good question.

Some of my sites have been customised, some not. But most are really old installations of WH, so I'm not even sure what a new install has on it...

I'll have to wait until I setup a new site.