2023-07-18        NONEXISTENT SPAMASSASSIN USER_PREFS


This is for those who combine Spamassassin, Exim and Debian-spamd, and
wish to fix those nonexistent spamassassin user_prefs: "No such file or
directory" errors and others.

For others who see these error messages in /var/log/mail.log:


,----
|  config: cannot create user preferences file /nonexistent/.spamassassin/user_prefs: No such
|  file or directory
`----

,----
|  spamd[1305]: bayes: cannot open bayes databases /var/lib/spamassassin/bayes_* R/O: tie
|  failed: Permission denied
`----

,----
|  pyzor: internal error, python traceback seen in response: Traceback (most recent call last):
`----

This means you need to check your exim4.conf. You might still have this
in your acl section

,----
|  spam = nobody
`----

if you replace this by (something like):

,----
|  spam = debian-spamd
`----

and restart exim4, those errors will likely be gone. Instead you'll see:

,----
|  spamd: setuid to debian-spamd succeeded
`----