[TriLUG] more spamassassin, procmail, sendmail

Turnpike Man turnpike420 at yahoo.com
Wed Apr 16 16:18:35 EDT 2003


> 
> If you don't use the trailing colon on an "mbox" format file (the
> default, traditional Unix mailbox format), you could end up with big
> problems if multiple instances of procmail try to write to the folder at
> the same time.  (Or if your MUA tries to write to it while procmail also
> does.)  The :0: tells it to lock the file, so that nothing else can
> write to it while procmail does.  (It releases the lock when it's done.)
> 
> You don't need the colon for recipes that don't involve mbox files, like
> the $DELIVERTO macro when using procmail on TriLUG, or sending mail
> through a pipe to spamassassin, or to /dev/null, etc.
> 
> --Jeremy

I think that is more confusing Jeremy, for a lesser like me!  If it locks the
file, won't the next process queue up?  I mean, as far as ~/mail/inbox, only
one message can be written at a time if it expects to keep order.

I use sendmail, so I don't suppose I have to worry about '.mbox' formats,
correct?  Also, what is this $DELIVERTO macro?  Does that relate to the mutt
lines someone wrote about earlier in the thread?  I tried using mutt... ick...
IMHO, each to his own.  Also, I presume by piping to spamassassin, you mean
this:

:0fw: spamassassin.lock
| /usr/bin/spamassassin

What about the trailing colon on this one?

Also, I noticed it takes significantly more time to deliver a message that the
.procmailrc sends through spamassassin.  Is this large of a difference to be
expected?  I went from 2-3 seconds to over 10-15 seconds on a P2 450 with 192
RAM, 9GB SCSI drive.  I am the only person using the machine, as it is my play
box.

Thanks,
David M.

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