Release Notes - SpamAssassin 3.2.3
- 19/05/2005 5:57 PM
Spam Assassin version 3.2.3 - available on CentOS plans.
We strongly recommend that any customer using Spam Assassin that is running on a CentOS plan upgrade to this version of Spam Assassin immediately. If you do not see any of the required applications in your Control Panel contact eApps support for assistance.
- UPGRADING from version 3.1.5 or 3.1.7 - If you are upgrading from version 3.1.5 or 3.1.7, login to your control panel, click the System tab, then Add Application. Choose smtp-vilter and PerlMods SA Package and click Next. If you do not see these applications, contact eApps support. After smtp-vilter and PerlMods are installed you may now upgrade Spam Assassin. From the System tab, click All Applications. From here you can click Upgrade Applications to get the new version.
- UPGRADING from versions prior to 3.1.5 - To upgrade to the new version from the 2.6* or 3.0.* versions, you must uninstall the old version. Then you can install smtp-vilter as explained above and at the same time install the new version of Spam Assassin. WARNING: If you are on version 2.6* you must save your configuration settings. Version 3.*.* has a new configuration interface which does not retain the settings from the prior versions. If you are still running one of the 2.6* versions, we highly recommend that you upgrade to the latest version. The improvements in spam fighting abilities have increased dramatically since these early releases.
- ADDING the new Custom Rules Sets - Spam Assassin users should also install the new Custom Rule Set application called Spam Rules. This rule set application will install custom rules to improve the effectiveness of flagging SPAM. From the System tab, click Add Application. Choose Spam Rules and click Next. PLEASE NOTE that the rule sets are not fully installed until a weekly process runs on Sunday at 4am Eastern (GMT-5). If you want to manually update the rules you can run "/usr/local/bin/rules_du_jour" from the command line.
- UPDATING ClamAV - If you are using ClamAV, you should also update it in conjunction with SpamAssassin.
- CHANGES/IMPROVEMENTS
- New Vilter - This version of Spam Assassin uses a new standalone Vilter called smtp-vilter. This Vilter is also used by ClamAV. This vilter processes mail efficiently but the key difference is that it allows for ClamAv to run independently of SpamAssassin or together. Prior to version 3.1.7 of SpamAssassin, ClamAV could not be run standalone without SpamAssassin because it used the bundled milter.
- PerlMods - This version also requires additional Perl modules that are not available in the base Perl environment. The Perl Modules are available as an application choice and must be installed to run the new version of Spam Assassin.
- New features and bug fixes - For a complete rundown of features included in this version of SpamAssassin, please refer to http://spamassassin.apache.org/news.html and http://www.nabble.com/ANNOUNCE%3A-Apache-SpamAssassin-3.2.0-available-tf3680367.html
- More Efficient - This package includes a different milter that connects spamassassin to sendmail. The smtp-vilter should handle higher volumes of mail more efficiently.
- Replacement of Spam Rules Application - We have removed the separate application, called Spam Rules, which installs and maintains some popular rules sets. We have found that the resource requirements for these rules are unpredictable and can crash the VPS. Instead, we now include the bundled Spam Assassin rules set, which consumes far less resources and is less likely to cause issues. IF you have the Spam Rules application installed and want to remove it please contact eApps support as it requires manual intervention to fully uninstall this application. The bundled rules set that is now being used will run daily and consume 10-20 MB of RAM. There is a one time initial load of the rules that consumes about 50 MB of RAM.
- IMPROVEMENTS OVER THE 2.6* VERSIONS
- Fix on text limit of White/Black lists - With the new administrative interface, you are not longer restricted to 250 characters of text.
- New Administration Interface - This package no longer uses the administrative interface that was on the system tab of the control panel. The new interface can be accessed via a browser at http://[yourdomainname]/spamassassin. Please look at the description in the control panel for authentication information. The new interface will enable us to provide additional features in future releases.