---
name: "sa-learn-cyrus"
section: "1"
platform: "linux"
package: "sa-learn-cyrus"
version: "0.3.2-2"
release: "Debian 6.0 (Squeeze)"
platforms: ["linux"]
url: "https://new.carta.tech/sa-learn-cyrus"
---

# sa-learn-cyrus(1)

Train Spamassassin with spam/ham from user's imap mailboxes

## NAME

sa-learn-cyrus - Train Spamassassin with spam/ham from user's imap mailboxes

## USAGE

sa-learn-cyrus \[ options \] user-name(s)

```
  user-name(s)              One ore more user/mailbox name(s).
  options:
    --help                  Prints a brief help message and exits.
    -h
    --man                   Prints the manual page and exits.
    --verbose level         Be verbose if level > 0
    -v level
    --config file           Use a configuration file other than the default
    -c file                 one.
    --sa-debug              Run sa-learn in debug mode.
    -d
    --simulate              Run in simulation mode (show commands only).
    -s
    --imap-domains domains  Search mailboxes in list of domains.
    -D domains
```

## DESCRIPTION

**sa-learn-cyrus** feeds spam and non-spam (ham) messages to Spamassassin's  database. Its main purpose is to train SA's bayes database with spam/ham  messages sorted by the mailbox owners into special subfolders.

It is intended to be used on smal mail systems (e.g. home office) with a  single server-wide SA configuration.

Launching **sa-learn-cyrus** at regular intervalls (cron job) may improve SA's  hit rate considerably, provided that the users are well instructed what to  move to their ham/spam folders and what not.

## FUNCTION

**sa-learn-cyrus** scans local mail spools as used by Cyrus IMAPd for special  subfolders. These subfolders are supposed to contain mails which have been  classfied as spam or ham by the mailbox owners.

Example: The users move spam mails which have not been tagged as spam by  SpamAssassin (false positives) to a subfolder *INBOX.Learn.Spam*. Other mails,  which may be classified by SA as spam in the future because of certain  characteristics are copied to a subfolder *INBOX.Learn.Ham*.

**sa-learn-cyrus** feeds the content of these spam/ham folders to SA's Bayes  database using the **sa-learn** tool which is shipped with the Spamassassin  package.

Afterwards these mails are deleted (optionally) by means of **ipurge** which is  a helper tool coming along with the Cyrus IMAPd package.

## ARGUMENTS

**sa-learn-cyrus** optionally takes a list of mailbox/user names as agruments:

```
  sa-learn-cyrus fred wilma fritz hjb
```

If not supplied all mailboxes found will be handled.

## OPTIONS

All options supplied on the comand line will override corresponding parameters given in the configuration file.

Please note that the basic parameters of sa-learn-cyrus have to be defined in a configuration file. sa-learn-cyrus cannot be controlled solely by  means of command.

- **--config file, -c file**

  Use configuration file other then the default one.  Always adopt the configuartion file to your needs before using sa-learn-cyrus  on a live system. Otherwise you may loose data or corrupt your SA data base!

- **--verbose level, -v level**

  Specify level of verbosity. (Default = 0)

- **--sa-debug, -d**

  Run sa-learn in debug mode. This may be useful to examine problems with  sa-learn.

- **--simulate, -s**

  Run **sa-learn-cyrus** in simulation mode. This is useful for first tests after initial configuration or if problem are encountered. In simulation mode  **sa-learn-cyrus** doesn't execute any system commands nor does it touch any  data. It just displays what it would do.

- **--imap-domains list-of-domains, -D list-of-domains**

  If your Cyrus installation uses the "domain support" you may use this option to tell what domains you want to be searched.

  ```
    --domains example.com,another.org
  ```

  is equivalent to

  ```
    [imap]
    ...
    domains = example.com another.org
    ...
  ```

  in the configuration file.

## CONFIGURATION

By default **sa-learn-cyrus** expects its configuration file as  */etc/sapmasassin/sa-learn-cyrus.conf*.

One has to change this setting in the code, if another default file is wanted. Another than the default file can always be choosen with the `"--config option"`.

A sample configuration file is shipped with sa-learn-cyrus.

### Format

The configuration file has a format as knwon from rsync or samba is very similar to the format of Windows ini files. The file consist of sequence  sections. The begin of each section is designated with a section name, a word  in square brackets, e.g. `"[global]"`. The section entries consist of  parameters, which are key/value pairs each on a single line. Key an value are  separated by an equal sign like

```
  key = value
```

The value is a single word or a list of words each of them representing a  number or a string. Words may be surrounded ba any number of spaces for better  readability. Empty lines and lines with a leading hash character `"#"` are  ingored.

### Section \[global\]

The \[global\] section contains all global controll parameters.

- **tmp\_dir = temporary-directory**

  **sa-learn-cyrus** creates some temporary files during each run. This is the  directory where thes files are created.

- **lock\_file = full-path-to-lock-file**

  To avoid race conditions, **sa-learn-cyrus** uses a simple file locking mechanism.  Each new sa-learn-cyrus process looks for this file before it realy does  anything. If this file exists, the process exits with a warning, assuming that  another sa-learn-cyrus process is running.

- **verbose = level**

  The level of verbosity. Values range from 0 (low) to 3 (high). A reasonable  level to start with is 1.

- **simulate = yes\|no**

  **sa-learn-cyrus** should be run in simulation mode (`"simulate = yes"`) after the  first customization of the configuration to avoid loss of data or corruption  of SA's database in case of wrongly configured parameters.

### Section \[mailbox\]

Section \[mailbox\] contains all parameters to select the mailboxes, to specify  the special subfolders, and to define the actions to apply.

- **include\_list = list-of-mailboxes**

  Only spam/ham mails of these mailboxes are fed to Spamassassin's database. If  this List ist empty, all mailboxes will be used. `"include_list"` may be used  instead of the list on the command line.

  Example:

  ```
    include_list = fred wilma fritz hjb
  ```

- **include\_regexp = regular-expression**

  If include\_list is empty, a regular expression given here is applied to all  mailbox names to select mailboxes. This parameter is ignored if include\_list  is not empty.

  Example: Include all mailboxes beginning with 'knf-'.

  ```
    include_regexp = ^knf-
  ```

- **exclude\_list = list-of-mailboxes**

  A list of mailboxes wich will be excluded. If include\_list is not empty, this  parameter is ignored.

- **exclude\_regexp = regular-expression**

  Mailbox names which match with this regular expresson are excluded from  processing.

  Example: Ignore all mailboxes ending with '.beie'

  ```
    exclude_regexp = \.beie$
  ```

- **spam\_folder = folder-name**

  The name of the special subfolder in each mailbox which contains spam. The name should be a complete folder path relative to the root folder INBOX. The Cyrus  nomenclature is applied (same as with cyradm).

  Example:

  ```
    spam_folder = Learn.Spam
  ```

  This is a subfolder in a folder tree like this:

  ```
      INBOX
      +--Drafts
      +--Templates
      +--Sent
      +--Learn
      |  +--Ham
      |  +--Spam  <-- spam subfolder
      |
  ```

- **ham\_folder = folder-name**

  The name of the special subfolder in each mailbox which contains ham. (Same naming scheme as with `"spam_folder"`, see above.)

- **remove\_spam = yes\|no**

  Are the spam messages in the `"spam_folder"` to be removed after feeding them to the SA database or not?

- **remove\_ham = yes\|no**

  Are the ham messages in the `"ham_folder"` to be removed after feeding them to  the SA database or not?

### Section \[sa\]

Spamassassin (SA) configuration items.

- **site\_config\_path = path**

  Path to system-wide SA preferences.

  Example:

  ```
    site_config_path = /etc/spamassassin
  ```

- **prefs\_file = file**

  Path of the system-wide SA configuartin file.

  Example:

  ```
    prefs_file = /etc/spamassassin/local.cf
  ```

- **learn\_cmd = path**

  Path to the sa-learn utility.

  Example:

  ```
    learn_cmd = /usr/bin/sa-learn
  ```

- **user = user-id**

  The user id SA runs with.

  Example:

  ```
    user = mail
  ```

- **group = group-id**

  The group id SA runs with.

  Example:

  ```
    group = mail
  ```

- **debug = yes\|no**

  Run sa-learn in debug mode or not. `"debug = yes"` may be useful to examine  problems.

### Section \[imap\]

The section \[imap\] contains the necessary configuration parameter to locate an manage the (Cyrus) IMAPd spool files.

- **base\_dir = dir**

  The root of the base directory of the IMAP spool (below that the mailboxes are  located).

- **initial\_letter = yes\|no**

  If base\_dir is divided in subdirectories named with the initial letters of  mailbox names set `"initial_letter = yes"` (default), otherwise choose no.

  Examples for joe's mailbox:

  ```
    <base_dir>/j/user/joe/ : initial_letter = yes
    <base_dir>/user/joe/ : initial_letter = no
  ```

- **domains = list-of-domains**

  If your Cyrus spool uses domain hierarchy supply a list of domains. If domain  support is not used leave this entry empty. The `"initial_letter"` option (see  above) is applied to domains, too.

  Example for mailboxes fritz@bar.org and joe@foo.com :

  The mail files within the Cyrus spool are located at

  ```
    <base_dir>/domain/b/bar.org/f/fritz
    <base_dir>/domain/f/foo.com/j/joe
  ```

  List the domains as

  ```
    domains = foo.com bar.org
  ```

- **unixhierarchysep = yes\|no**

  Choose `"unixhierarchysep = yes"` if Cyrus is configured to accept usernames like 'hans.mueller.somedomain.tld'. Otherwise set `"unixhierarchysep = no"`.

- **purge\_cmd = path-to-command**

  The path to the Cyrus **ipurge** utility for purging mail messages.

  Example:

  ```
    purge_cmd = /usr/sbin/ipurge
  ```

- **user = user**

  The user Cyrus-IMAPd runs as.

  Example:

  ```
    user = cyrus
  ```

## FILES

*/etc/spamassassin/sa-learn-cyrus.conf*

## SEE ALSO

*sa-learn*(1), *spamassassin*(1), *Mail::SpamAssassin*(3), [*imapd*(8)](/imapd/8.md)

The current version of this script is available  at \<http://www.pollux.franken.de/mail-server-tools/sa-learn-cyrus/\>

## PREREQUISITES

**sa-learn** (part of the SpamAssassin package), **ipurge** (part of Cyrus IMAPd)

## AUTHOR

Hans-Juergen Beie \<hjb@pollux.franken.de\>

## COPYRIGHT AND LICENSE

Copyright 2004-2008 by Hans-Juergen Beie.

This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the Artistic License 2.0  \<http://foundation.perl.org/legal/licenses/artistic-2\_0-plain.html\> or the GNU General Public License as published by the Free Software Foundation; either version 2 of the license  \<http://www.gnu.org/licenses/old-licenses/gpl-2.0.html\>, or (at your option) any later version.

## DISCLAIMER

This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.

## ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Thanks to Robert Carnecky and Jan Hauke Rahm for testing and suggestions for the implementation of the domain support.
