Bug#293207: bogofilter: last two versions caused db errors

[Karl Schmidt]

> 
> The only thing I can think of is that perhaps when you upgrade your
> exim is still delivering files and things get in a confused state. If
> you were actually removing and recreating your /etc/bogofilter
> directory contents, then you would of course need to stop exim in this
> process to keep this from happening.
> 
> Micah

I'm pretty sure I turned exim off by hand before I ran the script - (I will add 
it to my scrip when I test the next release).

Even if I failed to turn it off shouldn't the locking prevent such a problem? If 
not - that would be a bug in my mind. Not a bad idea to test - I could see it 
getting corrupted but working only to fail after some use.

I'm no expert on libdb, but most data bases support concurrency - I could see a 
problem when creating the data base - but shouldn't one be able to lock it to 
one instance for the creation phase?

More I think about this - I don't think exim could do that as the script I run 
as root creates root owned db files that the Debian-exim user couldn't talk to.

But, the other way around would be possible - Where exim creates the db and then 
the script adds to the db and possibly creates some log files with the root 
ownership that the Debian-exim user can't see.

Checking some ownerships...<time passes> ...

The directory has drwxrwx---   3 root        Debian-exim

all the db files are -rw-r--r--  1 Debian-exim Debian-exim

World readable -- owner only writable --

Let me test this right now. .. <more time passes> ..

With bogofilter  0.93.1-1
Ok deleting the db results in exims call of bogofilter creation of a db with:
-rw-------  1 Debian-exim Debian-exim

running:

bogofilter -M -s -d /etc/bogofilter -I /home/karl/mail/zs-archived-spam2004

Creates some log files with -rw-r--r--  1 root        root

Note the different owner AND permissions -- ok it is using the users create 
mask. -- Hmm should that really be the case? Could this scramble the db??

now with bogfilter 0.93.5-1

results in the same thing

Ok, I've changed my db recreation script to:

#!/bin/bash
wajig stop exim4
# yes my db directory should really be in var some place - but it is in /etc
rm /etc/bogofilter/* -f
bogofilter -M -s -d /etc/bogofilter -I /home/karl/mail/zs-archived-spam2004
bogofilter -M -s -d /etc/bogofilter -I /home/karl/mail/zs-archived-spam2003
bogofilter -M -s -d /etc/bogofilter -I /home/karl/mail/s-archived-spam
bogofilter -M -n -d /etc/bogofilter -I /home/karl/mail/z-archived2003
bogofilter -M -n -d /etc/bogofilter -I /home/karl/mail/z-archived2004
bogofilter -M -n -d /etc/bogofilter -I /home/karl/mail/archived
chown  Debian-exim.Debian-exim /etc/bogofilter/*
chmod go-r /etc/bogofilter/*
wajig start exim4

If this is the cause of the problem, it still leaves a question of how 
bogofilter should handle running as a different user than the db files?

I wonder if the problem was exim running

"bogofilter -d /etc/bogofilter -l -p -e -u"

as db creation command-- this all assumes I forgot to stop exim two different 
time (don't think so)?

As of now I'm running bogfilter 0.93.5-1 again and will let you know what 
happens in a few days time.

----------------------------------------------------------------
Karl Schmidt                         EMail Karl at xtronics.com
Transtronics, Inc.    		       WEB http://xtronics.com
3209 West 9th Street                    Ph (785) 841-3089
Lawrence, KS 66049                     FAX (785) 841-0434


Half of all people are below average.
----------------------------------------------------------------