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SpamAssassin 3.0 pre-release available


PeterJ

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I am posting information regarding SpamAssassin 3.0 here in the lounge so if people need or want to refer to the specifics, it is available. The quote below is from Daniel Quinlan's post to SpamAssassin's general mailing list on 6/19/2004. It can be viewed in context here: http://thread.gmane.org/gmane.mail.spam.sp...n.general/51560

*** THIS IS A PRE-RELEASE ONLY, NOT THE FINAL 3.0.0 RELEASE ***

SpamAssassin 3.0.0-pre1 is released!  SpamAssassin 3.0 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, bringing an

improved and clearer software license, the 2.0 version of the Apache

License.

- We added a new architecture which allows third-parties to easily add

plugin modules.

- There is now SQL database support for both the Bayes and auto-whitelist

subsystems, 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 used to trick email clients and filters.

- Web sites contained in the message body are checked against network

databases of domains that advertise with spam.

- SpamAssassin now includes support for SPF (the Sender Policy Framework,

http://spf.pobox.com/).

Downloading

-----------

Pick it up from:

  http://SpamAssassin.org/released/Mail-spam...0.0-pre1.tar.gz

  http://SpamAssassin.org/released/Mail-spam....0-pre1.tar.bz2

  http://SpamAssassin.org/released/Mail-spam...-3.0.0-pre1.zip

md5sum:

  bb42ada117c965bfa5b63046173cc4e0  Mail-SpamAssassin-3.000000-pre1.tar.gz

  53ebc4b0527d8f99d9fc3b52781a8100  Mail-SpamAssassin-3.000000-pre1.tar.bz2

  5f23d79ceaaa60ba4017cb067414dd01  Mail-SpamAssassin-3.000000-pre1.zip

sha1sum:

  9b1e02af2ecc79fc8149f399fad4090bfb981767  Mail-SpamAssassin-3.000000-pre1.tar.gz

  fb7fafb039dabba4d644d604c7a9dc056bd8b1b0  Mail-SpamAssassin-3.000000-pre1.tar.bz2

  1f152f1834e8611dc47350594e920d65fef1143d  Mail-SpamAssassin-3.000000-pre1.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://www.spamassassin.org/released/GPG-SIGNING-KEY

The key information is:

pub  1024D/265FA05B 2003-06-09 SpamAssassin Signing Key <release[at]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" configuration setting was deprecated and is now

  removed. Instead, using "rewrite_header Subject [your desired setting]".

  e.g.

    rewrite_subject ****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" scri_pt, 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 enum 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" scri_pt 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.

Translations:

  - Dutch translation, thanks to Jesse Houwing

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

  - French translations, Michel Bouissou

  - German translations, Daniel Roethlisberger

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