User's home directory /var/spool/mqueue is not writable

[pli]

After adding a new rules to [Home]/etc/mail/spamassassin in an attempt to stop a heck of an increase of spam over the past couple weeks and restarting mail scanner, the tail watch the log, I notice the following


Apr 24 11:55:52 host MailScanner[2436]: User's home directory /var/spool/mqueue is not writable
Apr 24 11:55:52 host MailScanner[2436]: You need to set the "SpamAssassin User State Dir" to a directory that the "Run As User" can write to

I changed the Permission of /var/spool/mqueue from 700 to 755 but made no difference - the rules I wrote are being picked up and added to the email score

The above only appears when mailscanner is restarted. It does not repeat

Is there something else I should be doing here?

thanks
Peter

[Sarah]

Make sure your /var/spool/mqueue directory is owned by mailnull:mail with permissions of 750.

In the MailScanner Configuration, what are your settings for:

Run As User
SpamAssassin User State Dir
SpamAssassin Site Rules Dir
SpamAssassin Local Rules Dir
SpamAssassin Local State Dir
SpamAssassin Default Rules Dir

Regards,
Sarah

[pli]

Thanks Sarah

ownership was root:mail and permissions was 700 - have changed

Run As User = mailnull
SpamAssassin User State Dir = empty
SpamAssassin Site Rules Dir = /etc/mail/spamassassin
SpamAssassin Local Rules Dir = emtpy
SpamAssassin Local State Dir = # /var/lib/spamassassin
SpamAssassin Default Rules Dir = empty

above where I have put = empty - it means the field is blank

thanks
Peter

[Sarah]

Hi Peter,

I expect it was the ownership and permissions causing the problem. All those other settings look correct to me.

Regards,
Sarah

[pli]

Thanks again Sarah

The permissions issue has not resurfaced since then

Again, thanks for your help

P

[nootkan]

Pli, I too get the same message now all of a sudden and I haven't changed the permissions or anything else in mailscanner. Where did you find the settings in config to change the permissions? I am not too fluent in ssh commands and everything I've tried there hasn't worked so I'm hoping there is a setting in config.

[pli]

I just followed Sarah's instructions

Make sure your /var/spool/mqueue directory is owned by mailnull:mail with permissions of 750.

cheers
Peter

[sawbuck]

Thanks Peter for bringing this up.

Checked and discovered we had the same problem but no idea how/when this first started.

[nootkan]

Well after some time I decided to try to fix this again but still cannot find any reference to the /var/spool/mqueue directory in the mailscanner configuration anywhere. Everything else is the same as Peter's settings which Sarah stated were normal. Not sure where to go from here. Is this a serious issue or can I ignore the warnings?

Run As User = mailnull
SpamAssassin User State Dir = empty
SpamAssassin Site Rules Dir = /etc/mail/spamassassin
SpamAssassin Local Rules Dir = emtpy
SpamAssassin Local State Dir = # /var/lib/spamassassin
SpamAssassin Default Rules Dir = empty

Update: After visiting another forum and asking the same question I got this reply which clarified things for me a bit.

Log in to root and type the following command:

chmod 750 /var/spool/mqueue

Thought I'd post here for anyone else (like me) who is just starting out learning shell commands. Won't know if it worked or not until my next email cron.

[sawbuck]

Looks to be a cPanel update issue.

Just moved to 11.26.0-CURRENT_48280 and the problem reoccured.