Re: Perl 5.8.2 problems (was Re: how to build Spamassassin)
On Dec 10, 2003, at 8:34 PM, Tony Jones wrote: At this point, /usr/local/perl/bin/perl is installed why is it in /usr/local/perl/bin? As far as I have seen, the ports collection doesn't do that. did you install as a port (make install in /usr/ports/lang/perl5.8)? What would happen if you were to use portinstall perl5.8 and portinstall spamassassin? You may need to install the portupgrade package if you haven't already done so. -- Paul Beard www.paulbeard.org/ paulbeard [at] mac.com ___ [EMAIL PROTECTED] mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Perl 5.8.2 problems (was Re: how to build Spamassassin)
why is it in /usr/local/perl/bin? As far as I have seen, the ports
collection doesn't do that. did you install as a port (make install in
/usr/ports/lang/perl5.8)?
Yes. make install PREFIX=/usr/local/perl
Is that bad? I like to have large packages installed into seperate
sub-directories in /usr/local rather than all competing for /usr/local/{bin,lib,
etc}.
What would happen if you were to use portinstall perl5.8 and
portinstall spamassassin? You may need to install the portupgrade
package if you haven't already done so.
I'm very unfamiliar with the ports system. I've never heard of portinstall
or portupgrade.
Just running make make install in the appropriate port subdirectory.
Tony
___
[EMAIL PROTECTED] mailing list
http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions
To unsubscribe, send any mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Perl 5.8.2 problems (was Re: how to build Spamassassin)
why is it in /usr/local/perl/bin? As far as I have seen, the ports collection doesn't do that. did you install as a port (make install in /usr/ports/lang/perl5.8)? Yes. make install PREFIX=/usr/local/perl I of course also did 'make PREFIX=/usr/local/perl' before doing the install. Tony ___ [EMAIL PROTECTED] mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Perl 5.8.2 problems (was Re: how to build Spamassassin)
On Dec 11, 2003, at 9:54 AM, Tony Jones wrote:
I'm very unfamiliar with the ports system. I've never heard of
portinstall
or portupgrade.
Just running make make install in the appropriate port subdirectory.
It seems to me you're making this really complicated: I don't know what
difference it makes where things get installed (/usr/local/{language}/
. . . ), but I have been using the ports collection as it comes without
a problem. One of the benefits of using a system (like FreeBSD) is that
there are some design conventions and decisions you can rely on.
My advice, and worth every penny you're paying, would be to use the
ports system and become familiar with it before hacking around it. To
that end, I would do, as root
cd /usr/ports/sysutils/portupgrade; make install and then use that to
manage the rest of it with portinstall portname, in your case perl5.8
and spamassassin. You may need to run use.perl port between those
steps to ensure that spamassassin gets built against perl5.8 and
doesn't complain about the wrong version.
--
Paul Beard
www.paulbeard.org/
paulbeard [at] mac.com
___
[EMAIL PROTECTED] mailing list
http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions
To unsubscribe, send any mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Perl 5.8.2 problems (was Re: how to build Spamassassin)
On Thu, Dec 11, 2003 at 09:56:27AM -0800, Tony Jones wrote: why is it in /usr/local/perl/bin? As far as I have seen, the ports collection doesn't do that. did you install as a port (make install in /usr/ports/lang/perl5.8)? Yes. make install PREFIX=/usr/local/perl I of course also did 'make PREFIX=/usr/local/perl' before doing the install. The main reason for doing that sort of thing with most unixoid systems is that using a unique prefix for every software package you install means that you can easily identify which files belong to what package when later on it comes time to update things. However, you don't have to do it that way on FreeBSD -- the ports system itself keeps track of where all of the installed files come from. Following the defaults -- that is, using the prefixes /usr/local or /usr/X11R6 -- means that all the binaries will appear in locations that are already on user paths, and dependent software packages will be able to find shared libraries to link against. But then again, it's your system and you can do what you like with it. Cheers, Matthew -- Dr Matthew J Seaman MA, D.Phil. 26 The Paddocks Savill Way PGP: http://www.infracaninophile.co.uk/pgpkey Marlow Tel: +44 1628 476614 Bucks., SL7 1TH UK pgp0.pgp Description: PGP signature
Re: Perl 5.8.2 problems (was Re: how to build Spamassassin)
The main reason for doing that sort of thing with most unixoid systems is that using a unique prefix for every software package you install means that you can easily identify which files belong to what package when later on it comes time to update things. I understand this, but I still like the seperation. Were I installing a package, I'd understand having to operate within the confines of someone elses location scheme, BUT I'm building from source for gods sake. Being able to change the base prefix of the port install seems like a pretty basic piece of functionality. Obviously there are some exceptions, but it would be easy for the port to inform you if PREFIX could not be changed in the environment. I did a 'make install' on portupgrade, didn't realize I'd have to install ruby to install perl :-) Grief. Then I found my problem. My stock shell was ksh, obtained from research.att.com many moons ago. It was doing some odd stuff with the environment (not via any dotted scripts). perl -v would work in ksh but once I su'd to root (csh) something was messed up. Shrug. chsh to sh or csh seems to work for that shell and also when su'ing to root. With my /usr/local/perl prefix and all. Thanks for everyones help chastisement :-)) tony ___ [EMAIL PROTECTED] mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Perl 5.8.2 problems (was Re: how to build Spamassassin)
Install Perl 5.8.2 from ports (or source)
I did this (/usr/ports/lang/perl5.8).
Made fine, but grokked during 'make install':
/bin/mkdir -p /usr/local/perl/lib/perl5/5.8.2/BSDPAN/ExtUtils
install -c -o root -g wheel -m 444
/usr/ports/lang/perl5.8/work/BSDPAN-5.8.0/ExtUtils/MM_Unix.pm
/usr/local/perl/lib/perl5/5.8.2/BSDPAN/ExtUtils/MM_Unix.pm
/bin/mkdir -p /usr/local/perl/lib/perl5/5.8.2/BSDPAN/ExtUtils
install -c -o root -g wheel -m 444
/usr/ports/lang/perl5.8/work/BSDPAN-5.8.0/ExtUtils/Packlist.pm
/usr/local/perl/lib/perl5/5.8.2/BSDPAN/ExtUtils/Packlist.pm
/usr/libexec/ld-elf.so.1: /usr/local/perl/bin/perl: Undefined symbol PL_exit_flags
*** Error code 1
At this point, /usr/local/perl/bin/perl is installed (above error is some later
foo) but any attempt to run /usr/local/perl/bin/perl gets the same error from
the dynamic loader -- but I am trying it as root (see later).
Found a post from '[EMAIL PROTECTED]' to freebsd.ports (on 11/12) with the
same problem (he was on 4.8, I'm on 4.9) but no answer.
Looks like PL_exit_flags is defined in the BSS segment of
{/usr/local/perl}/lib/perl5/5.8.2/mach/CORE/libperl.so.
But this seems too deep a path for addition to LD_LIBRARY_PATH.
Looking back through the build logs, I could see places where commands were
run with LD_LIBRARY_PATH prepended with /usr/ports/lang/perl5.8/work/perl-5.8.2
to pick up a copy of libperl.so in that directory but not in the case where
the make failed. So, I prepended the path to LD_LIBRARY_PATH in the
parent environment and reran make. This solved the problem and make install
completed.
But now I get this, which is baffling me a bit:
$ /usr/local/perl/bin/perl -v
This is perl, v5.8.2 built for i386-freebsd
Copyright 1987-2003, Larry Wall
[snip]
$ su
Password:
# /usr/local/perl/bin/perl -v
/usr/libexec/ld-elf.so.1: /usr/local/perl/bin/perl: Undefined symbol PL_exit_flags
# exit
$ script
Script started, output file is typescript
$ /usr/local/perl/bin/perl -v
/usr/libexec/ld-elf.so.1: /usr/local/perl/bin/perl: Undefined symbol PL_exit_flags
$ ^D
Script done, output file is typescript
$ ksh
$ /usr/local/perl/bin/perl -v
This is perl, v5.8.2 built for i386-freebsd
Copyright 1987-2003, Larry Wall
[snip]
$ ^D
Something is getting screwed up in the su and pty/script cases, as su - works
fine as does starting a subshell (.kshrc).
LD_LIBRARY_PATH is in the environment in all cases (=/usr/lib).
Anyone got any ideas. It's probably something obvious but it isn't dawning
on me. Yes, I have rebooted post installing perl. This is all 4.9 FreeBSD.
thanks!
Tony
___
[EMAIL PROTECTED] mailing list
http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions
To unsubscribe, send any mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: how to build Spamassassin
Hi Tony,
I would use cvsup to update your ports tree.
You can use %make buildworld, to reinstall system
perl. Look in /etc/make.conf for NOPERL var to
unset accordingly to if you want to build it
or not.
You can also try to install perl from ports. Then
you can use %use.perl ports, or %use.perl system
To define which perl your system will use.
You can also try deinstalling some p5- modules.
Hope this helps,
Robert
On Mon, Dec 08, 2003 at 10:29:26PM -0800, Tony Jones wrote:
Hi.
Over time I've got into the habit of either using packages or building
directly from the source. Last time I tried this (Postfix) and asked a Q
here, I was rapped over the knuckles :-) and told to use the Ports.
Right now I'm trying to build spamassassin, so I decided I'd be good and do
it the Ports way.
My current system is 4.9-PRERELEASE #5, upgraded for many years from src
using CTM.
- Read the handbook, ran /stand/sysinstall to get the ports tree, this failed
not finding the download location on ftp.freebsd.org and telling me to
manually change it
- So I went and got it manually. Was a little confused as many years ago
I recalled their being a ports tree per release. Now ports-stable and
ports-current both point to ports.
- I downloaded ports,tar.gz. Unpacked it and changed into
ports/mail/p5-Mail-SpamAssassin
- Did a make which immediately failed with
Makefile, line 27: Malformed conditional (${PERL_LEVEL} 500600)
Makefile, line 27: Need an operator
Makefile, line 31: if-less endif
Makefile, line 31: Need an operator
Makefile, line 33: Malformed conditional (${PERL_LEVEL} 500800)
Makefile, line 33: Need an operator
Makefile, line 35: if-less endif
Makefile, line 35: Need an operator
I recalled being able to make individual ports this way in the past.
So, this not working, I went and grabbed the sources for Mail-SpamAssassin-2.60
and figured I'd try building it manually.
trying: perl -MCPAN -e shell (which is the INSTALL files recommended way)
just generated lots of messages telling me to install Bundle::libnet ASAP
and when I did, it failed to install and seems to have messed up the perl
packages on my system.
So, two questions:
1) How can I reinstall perl 5.005_03 (make install from /usr/src)
2) Once I have the perl restored, what is the best way to install SpamAssassin
on 4.9 ?
Thanks
Tony (who hates perl)
___
[EMAIL PROTECTED] mailing list
http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions
To unsubscribe, send any mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
--
pgp0.pgp
Description: PGP signature
Re: how to build Spamassassin
On Mon, 8 Dec 2003, Tony Jones wrote:
Hi.
Over time I've got into the habit of either using packages or building
directly from the source. Last time I tried this (Postfix) and asked a Q
here, I was rapped over the knuckles :-) and told to use the Ports.
Right now I'm trying to build spamassassin, so I decided I'd be good and do
it the Ports way.
My current system is 4.9-PRERELEASE #5, upgraded for many years from src
using CTM.
- Read the handbook, ran /stand/sysinstall to get the ports tree, this failed
not finding the download location on ftp.freebsd.org and telling me to
manually change it
- So I went and got it manually. Was a little confused as many years ago
I recalled their being a ports tree per release. Now ports-stable and
ports-current both point to ports.
- I downloaded ports,tar.gz. Unpacked it and changed into
ports/mail/p5-Mail-SpamAssassin
- Did a make which immediately failed with
Makefile, line 27: Malformed conditional (${PERL_LEVEL} 500600)
Makefile, line 27: Need an operator
Makefile, line 31: if-less endif
Makefile, line 31: Need an operator
Makefile, line 33: Malformed conditional (${PERL_LEVEL} 500800)
Makefile, line 33: Need an operator
Makefile, line 35: if-less endif
Makefile, line 35: Need an operator
I recalled being able to make individual ports this way in the past.
Where did you unpack the ports tree to? /usr/share/mk/bsd.port.mk
expects /usr/ports, or the PORTSDIR variable to be set if the tree lives
elsewhere.
--
jan grant, ILRT, University of Bristol. http://www.ilrt.bris.ac.uk/
Tel +44(0)117 9287088 Fax +44 (0)117 9287112 http://ioctl.org/jan/
printf 'cat\nhello world' | `sh -c 'read c; echo $c'`
___
[EMAIL PROTECTED] mailing list
http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions
To unsubscribe, send any mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: how to build Spamassassin
On Mon, 08 Dec 2003 22:29:26 -0800, Tony Jones [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
[ snip ]
So, this not working, I went and grabbed the sources for
Mail-SpamAssassin-2.60
and figured I'd try building it manually.
trying: perl -MCPAN -e shell (which is the INSTALL files recommended
way)
just generated lots of messages telling me to install Bundle::libnet ASAP
and when I did, it failed to install and seems to have messed up the perl
packages on my system.
So, two questions:
1) How can I reinstall perl 5.005_03 (make install from /usr/src)
2) Once I have the perl restored, what is the best way to install
SpamAssassin
on 4.9 ?
Thanks
Tony (who hates perl)
Hm, well, if you hate perl perhaps you should consider using a spam
filtering package written in some other language!
The problem with FreeBSD and perl is well documented . . . basically the
FreebSD system has perl 5.005_03 which is a very old version nowadays, and
many modules require 5.6.1 at least if not 5.8+.
The simplest and easiest way to clear up these problems is to install a
new perl from source, in a non-standard location, so it creates its own
libraries from scratch. I recommend creating a user perl and installing
everything under /home/perl. Then at the end just change the symlinks to
/usr/bin/perl etc.
Do _not_ try to install a new perl over the 5.005 version that FreeBSD has
installed by default. FreeBSD creates non-standard library locations and
you will have lots of problems.
If you follow this advice you won't have any problem using CPAN to install
libwww, Mail::SpamAssassin and all the other modules you need or currently
use.perl and CPAN are _very_ reliable.
If you upgrade your FreeBSD to 5.1 you will find that the stock perl is
5.6.1 and most stuff Just Works with it. The perl has also been separated
from the base distribution and is now installed as a package (or port) so
it doesn't break when you update it.
On FreeBSD prior to 5.x I always built a new perl from source as I
described, and then built all my applications from source too (including
apache, mod_perl, mysql and a bunch of perl applications like
SpanAssassin). I too have encountered the 'ports or bust' mentality and
while it is good in theory it just doesn't work in practise where perl is
concerned. And there's way too much stuff depends on perl (for me at
least) for it to be flaky.
Hope this helps,
- nick
--
Nick Tonkin {|8^)
___
[EMAIL PROTECTED] mailing list
http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions
To unsubscribe, send any mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: how to build Spamassassin
Hi Nick. Thanks for the reply. I already knew of the FreeBSD stock perl issues and was aware that under no circumstances should I try to upgrade the stock Perl, but I appreciate the reminded nontheless!! I gave up on trying to install the SpamAssassin I obtained manually from spamassassin.org after it bitched that my Bundle::Net (or similar, sorry, forget the exact package) was out of date. Trying to install it via CPAM crapped out bigtime and seems to have left my stock FreeBSD perl setup in a goofy state. Perl would spit out nasty method tracebacks. Can someone tell me if it is possible to redo just the perl portion of a make installworld so I can reset my stock module config ? Giving up on this approach, with the help of Jan Grant's earlier reply I got the ports tree to work. [I needed to unpack the whole ports.tgz, not just the spamassassin subdir] First problem was that the MD5 on the downloaded distfile (that the ports Makefile downloaded from spamassassin.org) didn't match: MD5 (Mail-SpamAssassin-2.60.tar.gz) = 65ece9dec35cc4701d98680d0651afd3 --- MD5 (Mail-SpamAssassin-2.60.tar.gz) = 46d1db67ed1d860ddb136e0beb5f6ac3 I temporarily updated the MD5 so I could get past this, e-mailed the maintainer. I wasn't planning on installing until I heard back, but since the stock make did a bunch of perl module updating foo, if the tar.gz is trojaned I could already be screwed :-( Next the make groks when it tries to configure spamd, claims gcc isn't in the PATH, though it's in roots path once make drops back to the shell. This is probably easily fixable, but at this point I gave up and started working on what I get paid to do :-) All of this is on FreeBSD 4.9. I'm reminded of Greg Lemis's chastisement of me for previously not using the FreeBSD Ports system. It isn't making my life much easier here :-))) Tony Hm, well, if you hate perl perhaps you should consider using a spam filtering package written in some other language! The problem with FreeBSD and perl is well documented . . . basically the FreebSD system has perl 5.005_03 which is a very old version nowadays, and many modules require 5.6.1 at least if not 5.8+. The simplest and easiest way to clear up these problems is to install a new perl from source, in a non-standard location, so it creates its own libraries from scratch. I recommend creating a user perl and installing everything under /home/perl. Then at the end just change the symlinks to /usr/bin/perl etc. Do _not_ try to install a new perl over the 5.005 version that FreeBSD has installed by default. FreeBSD creates non-standard library locations and you will have lots of problems. If you follow this advice you won't have any problem using CPAN to install libwww, Mail::SpamAssassin and all the other modules you need or currently use.perl and CPAN are _very_ reliable. If you upgrade your FreeBSD to 5.1 you will find that the stock perl is 5.6.1 and most stuff Just Works with it. The perl has also been separated from the base distribution and is now installed as a package (or port) so it doesn't break when you update it. On FreeBSD prior to 5.x I always built a new perl from source as I described, and then built all my applications from source too (including apache, mod_perl, mysql and a bunch of perl applications like SpanAssassin). I too have encountered the 'ports or bust' mentality and while it is good in theory it just doesn't work in practise where perl is concerned. And there's way too much stuff depends on perl (for me at least) for it to be flaky. Hope this helps, ___ [EMAIL PROTECTED] mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: how to build Spamassassin
On Tue, 09 Dec 2003 17:11:10 -0800, Tony Jones [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
Hi Nick.
Thanks for the reply.
I already knew of the FreeBSD stock perl issues and was aware that
under no circumstances should I try to upgrade the stock Perl, but
I appreciate the reminded nontheless!!
I gave up on trying to install the SpamAssassin I obtained manually
from spamassassin.org after it bitched that my Bundle::Net (or similar,
sorry,
forget the exact package) was out of date. Trying to install it via CPAM
crapped out bigtime and seems to have left my stock FreeBSD perl setup
in a
goofy state. Perl would spit out nasty method tracebacks.
[ snip ]
I did suggest a very quick, easy and effective fix. It would have taken
you less than two hours to download, build and configure perl and multiple
CPAN modules [1] and been on your way.
I'm reminded of Greg Lemis's chastisement of me for previously not using
the FreeBSD Ports system. It isn't making my life much easier here :-)))
Right: it's just not true (in FreeBSD 5.1) that using ports makes your
life easier with perl. The p5-* ports are great but the base perl
installation is messed up; that's the problem. The FreeBSD developers
acknowledge as much, in
http://www.freebsd.org/releases/5.1R/early-adopter.html (section 6.3 -
Common Notes):
Perl has been removed from the base system, and should be installed
either from a pre-built package or from the Ports Collection. Building
Perl as a part of the base system created a number of difficulties which
made updates problematic.
Note that it _is_ true that the ports make your life easier with perl in
FreeBSD 5.1.x, since, as the same document continues:
sysinstall(8) will now install the Perl package as a part of most
distribution sets, so most users will not notice this change.
So in other words, the entire perl package is a port. Or a package :) This
is a generally a good thing, though it is sad to see that the port is of
5.6.1. This version of perl was superceded by 5.8 more than two years ago
and stable perl version is now 5.8.2 ... [2]
Anyways, you still have two good choices, IMHO: build a new sandbox perl
by hand (~ 2hrs) or build a new 5.1 system (~ 2 weeks? :)
Best,
-- nick
[1] CPAN's ability to install multiple related modules by groups via
Bundle::* can save you a lot of time versus FreeBSD's ports of the p5-*
modules. But that's another argument :)
[2] I don't know what you do with your server, but I do a lot of
internet-related stuff and it's an arena of dynamic development. I've
never found the ports able to keep up with the software I need. I build
perl, apache and their various components (mod_perl, mod_ssl etc) by hand,
and rely on the ports for other stuff. OTOH, as someone pointed out, the
ports-installed perl _does_ play nice with CPAN, so you can use CPAN to
get perl modules as well as use the p5-* ports.
--
___
Nick Tonkin {|8^)
___
[EMAIL PROTECTED] mailing list
http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions
To unsubscribe, send any mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: how to build Spamassassin
[ snip ] I did suggest a very quick, easy and effective fix. It would have taken you less than two hours to download, build and configure perl and multiple CPAN modules [1] and been on your way. Nick. I did all of what I said *BEFORE* you e-mailed your (excellent) suggestion. I will of course be trying what you suggest but cannot yet perform time travel ;-) [2] I don't know what you do with your server, but I do a lot of internet-related stuff and it's an arena of dynamic development. I've never found the ports able to keep up with the software I need. I build perl, apache and their various components (mod_perl, mod_ssl etc) by hand, and rely on the ports for other stuff. OTOH, as someone pointed out, the Agreed. This is what I normally did, but when I ran into a problem with Postfix (wrt sendmail compatability) I was whacked over the knuckes for not using the Port :-) Anyways, thanks much for your excellent advice. Tony ___ [EMAIL PROTECTED] mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: how to build Spamassassin
The ports collection is great for certain things. I do happen to use it for spam assassin on 4.9 Stable. I have perl 5.8.2 installed from ports and I used use.perl to set it up as default. Here is the problem with ports, many maintainers are using 5.x now. Since there is only one ports collection, things are OFTEN broken or don't work quite right. Sometimes features just aren't there.. look at the Sendmail -SASL port.. you can't use milter's without installing GCC 3 or upgrading to 5. Sometimes the ports are just plain out of date. There is nothing wrong with avoiding the ports collection when you need control or recent software. All of my web server related stuff is installed manually because I have a complex setup and i really don't feel like the extra hurdles the ports collection requires for apache 2 + mod jk + php 4.3 + perl + tomcat 4.1.x ... etc On the flip side, i love it for x11. If you change your mind on spam assassin, here is a procedure that should work. Install Perl 5.8.2 from ports (or source) Install Spam assassin from ports (or source) Install razor (it helps a lot) I personally use anomy mail (a script) with procmail to run spam assassin and clam av on incoming mail. I switched over to smapd and spamc for a slight performance improvement. It works fine on my mail server (low traffic). The real thing to remember about ports is to try to use it all or nothing for a given type of services. Trying to mix and match doesn't work well. Its a lot of work actually. On Dec 9, 2003, at 8:11 PM, Tony Jones wrote: Hi Nick. Thanks for the reply. I already knew of the FreeBSD stock perl issues and was aware that under no circumstances should I try to upgrade the stock Perl, but I appreciate the reminded nontheless!! I gave up on trying to install the SpamAssassin I obtained manually from spamassassin.org after it bitched that my Bundle::Net (or similar, sorry, forget the exact package) was out of date. Trying to install it via CPAM crapped out bigtime and seems to have left my stock FreeBSD perl setup in a goofy state. Perl would spit out nasty method tracebacks. Can someone tell me if it is possible to redo just the perl portion of a make installworld so I can reset my stock module config ? Giving up on this approach, with the help of Jan Grant's earlier reply I got the ports tree to work. [I needed to unpack the whole ports.tgz, not just the spamassassin subdir] First problem was that the MD5 on the downloaded distfile (that the ports Makefile downloaded from spamassassin.org) didn't match: MD5 (Mail-SpamAssassin-2.60.tar.gz) = 65ece9dec35cc4701d98680d0651afd3 --- MD5 (Mail-SpamAssassin-2.60.tar.gz) = 46d1db67ed1d860ddb136e0beb5f6ac3 I temporarily updated the MD5 so I could get past this, e-mailed the maintainer. I wasn't planning on installing until I heard back, but since the stock make did a bunch of perl module updating foo, if the tar.gz is trojaned I could already be screwed :-( Next the make groks when it tries to configure spamd, claims gcc isn't in the PATH, though it's in roots path once make drops back to the shell. This is probably easily fixable, but at this point I gave up and started working on what I get paid to do :-) All of this is on FreeBSD 4.9. I'm reminded of Greg Lemis's chastisement of me for previously not using the FreeBSD Ports system. It isn't making my life much easier here :-))) Tony Hm, well, if you hate perl perhaps you should consider using a spam filtering package written in some other language! The problem with FreeBSD and perl is well documented . . . basically the FreebSD system has perl 5.005_03 which is a very old version nowadays, and many modules require 5.6.1 at least if not 5.8+. The simplest and easiest way to clear up these problems is to install a new perl from source, in a non-standard location, so it creates its own libraries from scratch. I recommend creating a user perl and installing everything under /home/perl. Then at the end just change the symlinks to /usr/bin/perl etc. Do _not_ try to install a new perl over the 5.005 version that FreeBSD has installed by default. FreeBSD creates non-standard library locations and you will have lots of problems. If you follow this advice you won't have any problem using CPAN to install libwww, Mail::SpamAssassin and all the other modules you need or currently use.perl and CPAN are _very_ reliable. If you upgrade your FreeBSD to 5.1 you will find that the stock perl is 5.6.1 and most stuff Just Works with it. The perl has also been separated from the base distribution and is now installed as a package (or port) so it doesn't break when you update it. On FreeBSD prior to 5.x I always built a new perl from source as I described, and then built all my applications from source too (including apache, mod_perl, mysql and a bunch of perl applications like SpanAssassin). I too have encountered the 'ports or bust' mentality and while
