Apache SpamAssassin 3.2.0 available [LWN.net]

From:		Justin Mason <jm-AT-jmason.org>
To:		users-AT-SpamAssassin.apache.org, dev-AT-SpamAssassin.apache.org, announce-AT-SpamAssassin.apache.org
Subject:		ANNOUNCE: Apache SpamAssassin 3.2.0 available
Date:		Wed, 02 May 2007 13:43:16 +0100
Archive-link:		Article, Thread

Apache SpamAssassin 3.2.0 is now available!  This is the official release,
and contains a significant number of changes and major enhancements --
please use it!

Downloads are available from:
  http://spamassassin.apache.org/downloads.cgi?update=20070...

md5sum of archive files:
6840e3be132e2c3cbf66298b0227e880  Mail-SpamAssassin-3.2.0.tar.bz2
aed988bb6cf463afc868a64d4cd771a3  Mail-SpamAssassin-3.2.0.tar.gz
484045c69499b2fa59f024179f1f49c2  Mail-SpamAssassin-3.2.0.zip

sha1sum of archive files:
2fb864f01fc1c287e6f6e62fab8338f32cd20fb1  Mail-SpamAssassin-3.2.0.tar.bz2
af3941ab4f9548107d06966780ba71f751ab0216  Mail-SpamAssassin-3.2.0.tar.gz
bf785d7088371ad3beafe6084bf296ee3434038c  Mail-SpamAssassin-3.2.0.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://spamassassin.apache.org/released/GPG-SIGNING-KEY

The key information is:

pub 1024D/265FA05B 2003-06-09 SpamAssassin Signing Key
<release@spamassassin.org>
    Key fingerprint = 26C9 00A4 6DD4 0CD5 AD24  F6D7 DEE0 1987 265F A05B

See the INSTALL and UPGRADE files in the distribution for important
installation notes.

Summary of major changes since 3.1.8
------------------------------------

Changes to the core code:

 * new behavior for trusted_networks/internal_networks: the 127.* network is
now always considered trusted and internal, regardless of configuration.

 * bug 3109: short-circuiting of 'definite ham' or 'definite spam' messages
based on individual short-circuit rules using the 'shortcircuit' setting, by
Dallas Engelken <dallase /at/ uribl.com>.

 * bug 5305: implement 'msa_networks', for ISPs to specify their Mail
Submission Agents, and extend network trust accordingly.

 * bug 4636: Add support for charset normalization, so rules can be written
in UTF-8 to match text in other charsets.

 * sa-compile: compilation of SpamAssassin rules into a fast
parallel-matching DFA, implemented in native code.

 * "tflags multiple": allow writing of rules that count multiple hits in a
single message.

 * bug 4363: if a message uses CRLF for line endings, we should use it as
well, otherwise stay with LF as usual; important for Windows users.

 * bug 4515: content preview was omitting first paragraph when no Subject:
header was present.

 * The third-party modules used by sa-update are now required by the
SpamAssassin package, instead of being optional.

 * Bug 5165: 'sa-update --checkonly' added to check for updates without
applying them; thanks to <anomie /at/ users.sourceforge.net>

 * Bugs 4606, 4609: Adjust MIME parsing limits for nested multipart/* and
message/rfc822 MIME parts.

 * bug 5295: add 'whitelist_auth', to whitelist addresses that send mail
using sender-authorization systems like SPF, Domain Keys, and DKIM

 * Removed dependency on Text::Wrap CPAN module.

 * Received header parsing updates/fixes/additions.

Spamc / spamd:

 * bug 4603: Mail::SpamAssassin::Spamd::Apache2 -- mod_perl2 module,
implementing spamd as a mod_perl module, contributed as a Google Summer of
Code project by Radoslaw Zielinski.

 * bug 3991: spamd can now listen on UNIX domain, TCP, and SSL sockets
simultaneously.  Command-line semantics extended slightly, although fully
backwards compatibly; add the --ssl-port switch to allow TCP and SSL
listening at the same time.

 * bug 3466: do Bayes expiration, if required, after results have been passed
back to the client from spamd; this helps avoid client timeouts.

 * more complete IPv6 support.

 * spamc: Add '-K' switch, to ping spamd.

 * spamc: add '-z' switch, which compresses mails to be scanned using zlib
compression; very useful for long-distance use of spamc over the internet.

 * bug 5296: spamc '--headers' switch, which scans messages and transmits
back just rewritten headers.  This is more bandwidth-efficient than the
normal mode of scanning, but only works for 'report_safe 0'.
 
 * Bump spamd's protocol version to 1.4, to reflect new HEADERS verb used for
'--headers'.

Mail::SpamAssassin modules and API:

 * bug 4589: allow M::SA::Message to use IO::File objects to read in message
(same as GLOB).

 * bug 4517: rule instrumentation plugin hooks, to measure performance, from
John Gardiner Myers <jgmyers /at/ proofpoint.com>.

 * add two features to core rule-parsing code; 1. optional behaviour to
recurse through subdirs looking for .cf/.pre's, to support rules compilers
working on rulesrc dir.  2. call back into invoking code on lint failure, so
rule compiler can detect which rules exactly fail the lint check.

 * bug 5206: detect duplicate rules, and silently merge them internally for
greater efficiency.

 * bug 5243: add Plugin::register_method_priority() API, allowing plugins to
control the relative ordering of plugin callbacks relative to other plugins'
implementations.

 * Reduced memory footprint.

Plugins:

 * bug 5236: Support Mail::SPF replacement for Mail::SPF::Query.

 * bug 5127: allow mimeheader :raw rules to match newlines and folded-header
whitespace in MIME header strings.

 * bug 4770: add ASN.pm plugin, contributed by Matthias Leisi <matthias at
leisi.net>

 * bug 5271: move ImageInfo ruleset into 3.2.0 core rules, thanks to Dallas
Engelken <dallase /at/ uribl.com>.

 * VBounce ruleset and plugin: detect spurious bounce messages sent by broken
mail systems in response to spam or viruses.  (Based on Tim Jackson's
"bogus-virus-warnings.cf" ruleset.)

 * DomainKeys/DKIM: Mail::DKIM is now preferred over Mail::DomainKeys, since
the latter module is no longer actively maintained, and Mail::DKIM can handle
both DomainKeys and DKIM signatures.

 * DKIM: separate signature verification from fetching a policy: can save a
DNS lookup for each unverified message by setting score to 0 for all
policy-related rules (DKIM_POLICY_SIGNALL, DKIM_POLICY_SIGNSOME, and
DKIM_POLICY_TESTING). (thanks to Mark Martinec)

 * DKIM: support testing flags in the public key, as well as in the policy
record. (thanks to Mark Martinec)

 * DKIM: skip fetching a policy (SSP) if a signature does verify, according
to draft-allman-dkim-ssp-02 (thanks to Mark Martinec)

 * Move rule functionality and checking into separate Check plugin, allowing
third parties to implement alternative scanner core algorithms.

 * core EvalTests code moved into various plugins.

* Plus lots of miscellaneous bug fixes.


A more detailed change log can be read here:

http://svn.apache.org/repos/asf/spamassassin/tags/spamass...

(Log in to post comments)

informative

Posted May 2, 2007 16:31 UTC (Wed) by PO8 (guest, #41661) [Link]

Where by my estimates (having measured this stuff) "seriously speeds up" means "speeds up by two orders of magnitude". Ironically, I just gave a lecture to a machine learning class yesterday where I was whining about SA's uber-slow Perl ruleset that's been around forever: apparently they were listening. :-)

informative

Posted May 3, 2007 7:23 UTC (Thu) by jimmybgood (guest, #26142) [Link]

I agree. I'm a fanatic about changelogs. I review the changelog on every update to every program on my computer. I found this announcement and changelog particularly well written, despite knowing little about SA.

Every change was followed by a coherent description long enough so I could get an idea of the nature of and need for the change, but not so long as to get bogged down in details I didn't understand. And if I wanted to investigate a change, adequate information was provided so that I could do some additional research.

Useful references were provided. Excitement was elicited. Gratuitous hype was absent.