Saved Email - Spamassassin

[Jeffrey Goldberg]

On Apr 3, 2007, at 3:20 PM, Robert Davison wrote:

> I'm running an email server using Sendmail on FreeBSD 6.2, using  
> Spamassassin.

>   My question may be simple, but once sendmail has delieverd its  
> mail to the user, where is it stored ?

Typically it will be in /var/mail/$USER

> Is each email stored as an individual file ?

No.  Unless you configure things otherwise, mail will be stored in  
"unix" (AKA "mbox") format with one file per user.

>   I see that under my /home/'each users' directory I have a mbox  
> file. Once open it contains email messages. However, I note that  
> these do not tie up with what is in my inbox through my webmail  
> client. Some messages exist in the mbox file but not my inbox.

Some mail clients, like "mail", will move messages from /var/mail/ 
$USERNAME to ~/mbox.  Pine also does this under default configurations.

So the "problem" appears to be that your webmail system (what is it?)  
is only looking in /var/mail and note for mbox files in your home  
directory.

Chances are it can be configured to look for both.  If not, then you  
need to be careful to only read your mail using one system.   
Personally, I prefer setting up an IMAP server.  IMAP has all of the  
advantages of webmail without the disadvantages.

>   Is this what I should be looking at.
>
>   I ask because I want to train my Bayes filter under spamassassin  
> using the
>
>   sa-learn --spam command, and want to be sure i'm running it on  
> the right directory and or files

I suggest that you get your mail delivery and access sorted out  
before you try to set up sa-learn.  Otherwise, you will find yourself  
pulling the ground out from underneath the Bayes filtering.

Cheers,

-j


-- 
Jeffrey Goldberg                        http://www.goldmark.org/jeff/