procmail
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Re: rc compatibility?

1999-12-14 21:30:02
Erik Dufek <dufeke(_at_)iscmed(_dot_)med(_dot_)ge(_dot_)com> writes:
Procmail Version 3.14 was just installed by the admin at our site and when
it is used with my current version of .procmailrc, it gives errors to the
root user complaining about an invalid .procmailrc file.  It also doesn't
filter the mail or make any log entries.  I've asked the site admin to
recompile it, but he is resisting because he says it compiled without
errors.  Our current operating version of procmail is v3.10.

So 2 questions: Is there any known incompatibility between a
v3.10 procmailrc and v3.14?

Any suggestions on what I should do next?  Since I'm not seeing any errors
(other than no reaction from procmail) I'm not sure how to go about
troubleshooting where the problem is. 

Version 3.14 is more paranoid about the permissions of the default rcfile.
In particular, it doesn't allow the default rcfile or $HOME to be group
writable unless procmail was compiled with GROUP_PER_USER #defined in
config.h, and even then it requires the group to be the user's primary
group.

How would you know to consider this?  Well, the "errors to the root user"
are almost certainly of the form "Suspicious rcfile ...".  If you look
that up in the procmail(1) manpage:
       Suspicious rcfile "x"  The owner of the rcfile was not the
                              recipient or  root,  the  file  was
                              world  writable,  or  the directory
                              that   contained   it   was   world
                              writable,  or  this was the default
                              rcfile ($HOME/.procmailrc) and  ei-
                              ther  it  was group writable or the
                              directory  that  contained  it  was
                              group  writable (the rcfile was not
                              used).


So, if each user on the system has their own group, then procmail should
be recompiled with GROUP_PER_USER #defined in config.h.  If not, then
you need to fix the permission on your home directory or .procmailrc.

If procmail will need to be recompiled on your system then I would
suggest waiting a few days as another release of procmail will be
happening Real Soon Now to resolve a few issue created by version 3.14.
At that point you can say to your sysadmin, "look a new version is out;
can you compile it and set GROUP_PER_USER while you're at it?"


Philip Guenther

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