From: Steve Date: 20:45 on 14 Oct 2003 Subject: Solaris, Perl and Sys::Syslog My employer runs Sendmail (the commercial version, and no, I don't know why). Our primary mail gateway runs on Solaris 8, and our failover runs on Mandrake 8.2. Recently, my many bosses began moaning about SPAM, so I convinced them to let us try SpamAssassin. I configured the failover and had everything going within a few hours or so. We set up a test group, and using virtusertable, I was able to route the test group from the primary over to the failover, where their email was processed through SpamAssassin. Things went so well that the bosses have now decided to implement SpamAssassin throughout the organization. They are SO proud of themselves. So, off to the primary server I go. I installed SpamAssassin, copied the configuration files over, set up a startup script, and then fired it up. spamd wouldn't start. It died, bitching about Sys::Syslog not being installed. Okay, whatever. I head over to CPAN and search for Sys::Syslog. What the fuck? It's ONLY available in 5.8+ now? If I want it, I HAVE to upgrade Perl? Why the hell can't I just download an older package? Dammit. The Solaris box functions only as our primary email gateway. It's a fairly minimal installation, with almost no development libraries, headers, etc. installed on it. So, compiling Perl (which I prefer to do) is out of the question. Which means ... I have to visit SunFreeware.com, one of the worst fucking sites I've ever had the misfortune to visit. It takes about 10 minutes for the first page to load. Then I have to click Solaris 8, which then takes another 5 minutes or so. Then I click on the package I want ... and this is where SunFreeware really starts to suck nuts. Instead of loading a description page for the package I'm wanting, it loads ONE HUGE MOTHERFUCKING page containing descriptions of EVERY Solaris 8 package available. A little over an hour later, I have Perl-5.8.0 downloaded. I install Perl and check that Sys::Syslog is indeed now available. Yes! I fire-up spampd (a proxy daemon which makes it easier to integrate Sendmail and SpamAssassin), only to see the following: # /etc/init.d/spampd start -n Starting spampd: unix passed to setlogsock, but path not available at /usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/5.8.0/Net/Server.pm line 204 Syslog err [] at /usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/5.8.0/Net/Server.pm line 204. Huh? A little research leads me to http://archive.develooper.com/perl5-porters@xxxx.xxx/msg94052.html, which indicates that this problem has been around for OVER 2 FUCKING YEARS AND STILL HASN'T BEEN FIXED. Basically, almost every *nix recognizes the _PATH_LOG() as defined in sys/syslog.h. But not Solaris ... oh no, baby. No fucking way. It's gotta be different ... it's gotta be unique. It requires LOG_SYSLOG(). And apparently, the only way I can fix this is to recompile a bunch of shit - something I CANNOT FUCKING DO ON THIS MACHINE. Not unless I want to install a ton of development packages, and spend the rest of the week chasing down missing libraries, etc. But the REAL question is this: Why the FUCK didn't the people who packaged Perl for Solaris fix this shit? Christ Almighty ... Sys::Syslog is now standard in Perl, but it DOESN'T FUCKING WORK ON SOLARIS because the packagers WON'T ADDRESS THE GODDAMNED BUG! A bug that has been around SINCE 2001! Fuck. All I want to do is filter some SPAM .... *sigh* -- steve
From: David Champion Date: 21:35 on 14 Oct 2003 Subject: Re: Solaris, Perl and Sys::Syslog * On 2003.10.14, in <33017.66.230.1.1.1066160752.squirrel@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>, * "Steve" <stephen@xxxxxxxxx.xxx> wrote: > > But the REAL question is this: Why the FUCK didn't the people who packaged > Perl for Solaris fix this shit? Christ Almighty ... Sys::Syslog is now > standard in Perl, but it DOESN'T FUCKING WORK ON SOLARIS because the > packagers WON'T ADDRESS THE GODDAMNED BUG! A bug that has been around > SINCE 2001! Not to dampen the hate, not at all -- indeed, I want to add. The root problem is with Sys::Syslog's assuming that it can syslog through a unix socket. That's not a given. Solaris's syslog uses doors, and that's fair, because the only defined interface to syslog is the one in the C library. Sys::Syslog should just bleeding use the C library, instead of making unwarranted assumptions about the implementation of syslog. So, lots of hate to Sys::Syslog. We've been there, too. But that's perl for you. I hate perl.
From: Steve Date: 21:46 on 14 Oct 2003 Subject: Re: Solaris, Perl and Sys::Syslog With a bit of fiddling and re-reading the bug threads, I managed to get this damned thing working. First, I edited usr/local/lib/perl5/5.8.0/sun4-solaris/Sys/Syslog.pm and changed every reference to _PATH_LOG to &LOG_SYSLOG(). Then, I edited spampd and changed my $logsock = "unix" to my $logsock = "inet" spampd then fired up successfully and started listening. Should it really require this much effort? NO IT FUCKING SHOULD NOT. *sigh* I've tweaked so much stuff, I don't know ... I think I'm going to have to set up a test box and verify this is working. The last thing I need is for someone's email to get lost. God forbid someone in Accounting not get the latest pictures of their grandkids or miss out on some friggin' sale at Wal Mart. -- steve
From: Michael G Schwern Date: 03:20 on 15 Oct 2003 Subject: Re: Solaris, Perl and Sys::Syslog On Tue, Oct 14, 2003 at 03:46:05PM -0500, Steve wrote: > With a bit of fiddling and re-reading the bug threads, I managed to get > this damned thing working. > > First, I edited usr/local/lib/perl5/5.8.0/sun4-solaris/Sys/Syslog.pm and > changed every reference to _PATH_LOG to &LOG_SYSLOG(). > > Then, I edited spampd and changed > > my $logsock = "unix" > > to > > my $logsock = "inet" > > spampd then fired up successfully and started listening. > > Should it really require this much effort? NO IT FUCKING SHOULD NOT. *points helpfully to rt.perl.org* A well-formed bug report might help ease the hate.
From: Steve Date: 03:33 on 15 Oct 2003 Subject: Re: Solaris, Perl and Sys::Syslog The bug reports are already there. I arrived at my solution by digging through a few of them, so not only has the bug been reported (many times), but the solution is documented within those same reports. At this point (2+ years following the first reported problem), I don't think submitting yet _another_ bug report is going to miraculously result in a fix. Don't get me wrong ... I'm all for participating and helping out where I can. But I'm patently opposed to beating a dead horse. The button was pushed years ago and has been pushed several times since. The elevator still hasn't arrived. My pushing the button once more ain't gonna change a thing. -- steve Michael G Schwern said: > > *points helpfully to rt.perl.org* A well-formed bug report might help > ease the hate.
From: Steve Date: 03:46 on 15 Oct 2003 Subject: Re: Solaris, Perl and Sys::Syslog Okay, okay. So I checked rt. It appears that this problem has been somewhat resolved in 5.8.1. See http://bugs6.perl.org/rt2/Ticket/Display.html for more information. Unfortunately, at the time of this writing, 5.8.1 isn't available for Solaris on SunFreeware.com. Fortunately, however, I've got it working and have no immediate plans to upgrade again. Ever, if I can help it. God help me, I'm _so_ close to convincing my multiple bosses that ditching Solaris and standardizing on one version of Linux (which would also assist in standardizing on hardware across-the-board) would be a Good Thing (TM) from a support standpoint ... I have a dream ... -- steve Steve said: > The bug reports are already there. I arrived at my solution by digging > through a few of them, so not only has the bug been reported (many > times), but the solution is documented within those same reports. > > At this point (2+ years following the first reported problem), I don't > think submitting yet _another_ bug report is going to miraculously > result in a fix. > > Don't get me wrong ... I'm all for participating and helping out where I > can. But I'm patently opposed to beating a dead horse. The button was > pushed years ago and has been pushed several times since. The elevator > still hasn't arrived. My pushing the button once more ain't gonna > change a thing. > > -- > steve > > Michael G Schwern said: >> >> *points helpfully to rt.perl.org* A well-formed bug report might help >> ease the hate.
From: Michael G Schwern Date: 05:49 on 15 Oct 2003 Subject: Re: Solaris, Perl and Sys::Syslog On Tue, Oct 14, 2003 at 09:33:52PM -0500, Steve wrote: > The bug reports are already there. I arrived at my solution by digging > through a few of them, so not only has the bug been reported (many times), > but the solution is documented within those same reports. > > At this point (2+ years following the first reported problem), I don't > think submitting yet _another_ bug report is going to miraculously result > in a fix. Since you have a fix, turn it into a patch and send it on. Patches are like Jello. They make everything better. :) > Don't get me wrong ... I'm all for participating and helping out where I > can. But I'm patently opposed to beating a dead horse. The button was > pushed years ago and has been pushed several times since. The elevator > still hasn't arrived. My pushing the button once more ain't gonna change > a thing. p5p forgets bugs all the time. Yelling about old bugs on p5p is better than yelling about old bugs here. :) And it might get something accomplished.
From: Nicholas Clark Date: 14:22 on 15 Oct 2003 Subject: Re: Solaris, Perl and Sys::Syslog On Tue, Oct 14, 2003 at 09:49:51PM -0700, Michael G Schwern wrote: > p5p forgets bugs all the time. Yelling about old bugs on p5p is better This is something I'd like to fix. However, I don't have infinite free time in which to do it. But this is not hate, and I get told off if I spend too much time sending non-hate to this list. I'll just go off and hate whichever it is out of mozilla and fvwm that is causing mozilla to jump to the front of the window stack whenever it opens a dialogue asking me if I want a cookie. Nicholas Clark
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