Procmail battles

[jdow]

From: "Gregory P. Ennis" <PoMec at PoMec.Net>

> On Sun, 2006-05-14 at 12:52 +0100, Paul Howarth wrote:
>> On Sat, 2006-05-13 at 20:52 -0500, Gregory P. Ennis wrote:
>> > On Sat, 2006-05-13 at 21:42 -0400, Paul Michael Reilly wrote:
>> > > Les Mikesell <lesmikesell at gmail.com> writes:
>> > >
>> > >  > On Sat, 2006-05-13 at 14:48, Paul Michael Reilly wrote:
>> > >  >
>> > >  > > LOGFILE=/root/procmail.log
>> > >  > > LOGABSTRACT=yes
>> > >  > > VERBOSE=1
>> > >  > >
>> > >  > > and send mail to "root" then I actually see an abstract appended to
>> > >  > > /root/procmail.log which is consistent with the procmail man page in
>> > >  > > that it says $HOME/.procmailrc will get processed.  I leaped,
>> > >  > > incorrectly it would appear, to the conclusion that $HOME referred to
>> > >  > > the mail target.  It must be referring to the User running procmail,
>> > >  > > i.e. "root" on a stock Fedora Core system, which makes considerable
>> > >  > > sense.  This, I believe, is the crux of my battles.
>> > >  >
>> > >  > $HOME is the expansion of the environment variable HOME, which
>> > >  > is set to the 6th field of the user's /etc/passwd file entry,
>> > >  > i.e. their home directory.  This happens in a straightforward
>> > >  > way during logins and is emulated in procmail runs.
>> > >  >
>> > >  > > So that raises the question: how does one configure mail (sendmail or
>> > >  > > otherwise) on a stock Fedora Core system so that ~User/.procmailrc
>> > >  > > will be processed for all User's on the system?
>> > >  >
>> > >  > ~user is expanded in a shell to the same thing as $HOME would be for
>> > >  > that user.  Sendmail should, by default, use procmail for everyone
>> > >  > which should then process their .procmailrc but it will not trust
>> > >  > files where the permissions allow write access by others.
>> > >
>> > > Excellent.  This insight has led to the real culprit: selinux.
>> > > Disabling selinux leads to FC4 level behavior so it is a safe bet that
>> > > a more stringent FC5 selinux setting is what is ailing me.  Now,
>> > > ideally, I should be able to google FC5, selinux and mail and get some
>> > > insight.  Not so.  Anyone have a reference where I can learn what
>> > > FC5 now expects from sendmail/procmail to make selinux happy?  The
>> > > entries in /var/log/messages are not exactly real informative:
>> > >
>> > > May 13 21:22:04 roamer kernel: audit(1147569724.815:39): avc:  denied  { search } 
>> > > for  pid=26417 comm="procmail" name="log" dev=dm-0 ino=4128796 
>> > > scontext=system_u:system_r:procmail_t:s0 tcontext=system_u:object_r:var_log_t:s0 
>> > > tclass=dir
>> > >
>> > >
>> > > -pmr
>> > >
>> > I am having the same problem with FC5 and selinux.  My system worked
>> > fine with FC4 but is failing with FC5.  I am using procmail to store
>> > spam in created directory ie /savedrwxr-xr-x  root     mail     root:object_r:root_t 
>> > .
>
>
>> /home/$USER/Mail/spam.  When I turn
>> > selinux off I can get procmail to work perfectly, but when I turn
>> > selinux back on it fails to be able to write in this directory.  I know
>> > very little about selinux and would appreciate some references as to
>> > changes from FC4 to FC5 as well.
>>
>> The out-of-the-box selinux policy for FC5 was somewhat broken for
>> procmail, particularly if you wanted to forward mail as an action.
>>
>> Paul, what log files are you trying to write, and what the the "adv:
>> denial" messages you see in /var/log/messages when procmail tries to
>> write to this log?
>>
>> Gregory, is /save/home/$USER the home directory for $USER?
>> What's the output of:

Of course one could always use $LOGNAME instead of $USER. The former is
usually defined within procmail instances and the latter may not be.

{^_^}