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A J
Asked: 2014-05-07 01:57:11 +0800 CST

I can't start spamassassin service

  • 772

I have installed and configured spammassassin in my system(14.04) using this tutor. When I start a service using,

service spamassassin start

am getting response as,

Starting SpamAssassin Mail Filter Daemon: server socket setup failed, retry 1: spamd: could not create IO::Socket::INET6 socket on [::1]:783: Cannot assign requested address
server socket setup failed, retry 2: spamd: could not create IO::Socket::INET6 socket on [127.0.0.1]:783: Address already in use
server socket setup failed, retry 3: spamd: could not create IO::Socket::INET6 socket on [127.0.0.1]:783: Address already in use
server socket setup failed, retry 4: spamd: could not create IO::Socket::INET6 socket on [127.0.0.1]:783: Address already in use
server socket setup failed, retry 5: spamd: could not create IO::Socket::INET6 socket on [127.0.0.1]:783: Address already in use
server socket setup failed, retry 6: spamd: could not create IO::Socket::INET6 socket on [127.0.0.1]:783: Address already in use
server socket setup failed, retry 7: spamd: could not create IO::Socket::INET6 socket on [127.0.0.1]:783: Address already in use
server socket setup failed, retry 8: spamd: could not create IO::Socket::INET6 socket on [127.0.0.1]:783: Address already in use
server socket setup failed, retry 9: spamd: could not create IO::Socket::INET6 socket on [127.0.0.1]:783: Address already in use
spamd: could not create IO::Socket::INET6 socket on [127.0.0.1]:783: Address already in use

I have tried,

netstat -lptn

it's showing,

enter image description here

there is process running with 127.0.1.1:783

also tried,

sudo netstat -lepnt

am getting,

enter image description here

here too not showing any process run with 127.0.1.1:783

Please tell me where the problem cause ?

14.04

4 Answers

  1. Best Answer

    Run sudo netstat -lptn | grep 783 and get the PID (right most side of the output - some thing like 2332/spamd.pid ) of the program that uses 783 port. Then kill that program with sudo kill -9 PID. Then start the spamassasin

    service spamassassin start

    If you still get the INET6 socket error, try running spamd without IPv6 support (assuming you don't need it).

    sudo nano /etc/default/spamassassin

    Add -4 to your OPTIONS line

    spamd --help

...
-4, --ipv4-only, --ipv4           Use IPv4 where applicable, disables IPv6
...

    Otherwise, troubleshoot your IPv6 config.

    • 12

  2. Check if ipv6 is enabled

    sysctl -a|grep disable_ipv6

    If it isn't enable it or disable ipv6 in spamassassin as suggested above.

    • 0

  3. I had the same problem. The answers here did not help me at all. I found that the problem went away, without disabling IPv6, by editing /etc/default/spamassassin and adding a user for spamd, as described here. The essential steps described in that page are:

    1) sudo apt-get install spamassassin spamc

    2) sudo adduser spamd --disabled-login

    3) Edit /etc/default/spamassassin to include the following:

    ENABLED=1
SPAMD_HOME="/home/spamd/"
OPTIONS="--create-prefs --max-children 5 --username spamd --helper-home-dir ${SPAMD_HOME} -s ${SPAMD_HOME}spamd.log"
PIDFILE="${SPAMD_HOME}spamd.pid"
CRON=1

    4) Edit /etc/spamassassin/local.cf to set up some anti-spam rules, e.g.,

    rewrite_header Subject ***** SPAM *****
report_safe             0
required_score          5.0
use_bayes               1
use_bayes_rules         1
bayes_auto_learn        1

    5) sudo service spamassassin start

    One more step is described, to update postfix, which was not needed in my case. I think the core of the issue is step 2 and then adding --username spamd in the OPTIONS of /etc/default/spamassassin

    • 0

  4. Update: how to start the spamassassin service with Ubuntu 20.10

    Install spamassassin (and also spamc and sa-compile):

    % sudo apt install spamassassin

    Spamassassin can be run in the foreground with spamassassin and in the background as a daemon with spamd -d.

    The installation creates a non login user debian-spamd.

    Why a dedicated user?

    % grep spamd /etc/passwd
debian-spamd:x:131:136::/var/lib/spamassassin:/usr/sbin/nologin

    Do not create user spamd!

    Make a startup item:

    % sudo systemctl enable spamassassin  
Synchronizing state of spamassassin.service with SysV service script with /lib/systemd/systemd-sysv-install.
Executing: /lib/systemd/systemd-sysv-install enable spamassassin
Created symlink /etc/systemd/system/multi-user.target.wants/spamassassin.service → /lib/systemd/system/spamassassin.service.

    Check the configuration:

    % cat /lib/systemd/system/spamassassin.service
[Unit]
Description=Perl-based spam filter using text analysis
After=network.target

[Service]
Type=forking
PIDFile=/run/spamd.pid
EnvironmentFile=-/etc/default/spamassassin
ExecStart=/usr/sbin/spamd -d --pidfile=/run/spamd.pid $OPTIONS
ExecReload=/bin/kill -HUP $MAINPID
StandardOutput=null
StandardError=null
Restart=always

[Install]
WantedBy=multi-user.target

    My best guess for configuration file /etc/default/spamassassin is:

    OPTIONS="--debug --create-prefs --username=debian-spamd --max-children=5 --username=debian-spamd --helper-home-dir --syslog=/var/log/spamd.log"

    See man spamd for all options.

    Start service without restarting the computer:

    % sudo systemctl start spamassassin

    or

    % sudo service spamassassin start

    Restart service after configuration change without restarting the computer:

    % sudo service spamassassin restart

    Check status:

    % sudo service spamassassin status 
● spamassassin.service - Perl-based spam filter using text analysis
     Loaded: loaded (/lib/systemd/system/spamassassin.service; enabled; vendor preset: enabled)
     Active: active (running) since Mon 2021-06-21 00:47:10 WEST; 1s ago
    Process: 56524 ExecStart=/usr/sbin/spamd -d --pidfile=/run/spamd.pid $OPTIONS (code=exited, status=0/SUCCESS)
   Main PID: 56529 (spamd)
      Tasks: 3 (limit: 19035)
     Memory: 98.0M
     CGroup: /system.slice/spamassassin.service
             ├─56529 /usr/bin/perl -T -w /usr/sbin/spamd -d --pidfile=/run/spamd.pid --debug --create-prefs --max-children=5 --username=debian-spa>
             ├─56530 spamd child
             └─56531 spamd child

    Check running options:

    % ps -ef|grep spamd              
root       56529       1  0 00:47 ?        00:00:01 /usr/bin/perl -T -w /usr/sbin/spamd -d --pidfile=/run/spamd.pid --debug --create-prefs --max-children=5 --username=debian-spamd --helper-home-dir=/var/lib/spamassassin --syslog=/var/lib/spamassasin/spamd.log
debian-+   56530   56529  0 00:47 ?        00:00:00 spamd child
debian-+   56531   56529  0 00:47 ?        00:00:00 spamd child

    where debian-+ is a shorthand for debian-spamd (too long for ps).

    Check PID:

    % cat /run/spamd.pid
56529

    Check that spamd is listening on the network:

    % sudo netstat -nlp|grep 56529
tcp        0      0 127.0.0.1:783     0.0.0.0:*  LISTEN      
56529/perl           
tcp6       0      0 ::1:783        :::*    LISTEN      
56529/perl

    Given default port number 783, sudo netstat -nlp|grep 783 will return the same information independently of the PID.

    spamd can be used with a mail server but it can also be used directly in the command line. After spamc, type some text, exit with Control-D, this yields a report.

    The same report can be obtained with spamassassin.

    spamd itself can be launched in the command line.

    In /etc/default/spamassassin, ENABLE, PIDFILE, CRON have no effect. With CRON = 1, I see no cron job:

    % sudo crontab -u debian-spamd -l
no crontab for debian-spamd

% sudo crontab -u root -l        
no crontab for root

    Other configuration file: /etc/init.d/spamassassin.

    Do not confuse the spamassassin service configuration (discussed so far) with the spamassassin configuration (how to detect spam). The latter is explained in man spamassassin, in particular the configuration file names.

    • 0