ANNOUNCE: amavisd-new-2.9.0-rc1 release candidate is available

[Mark Martinec via amavis-users]

A release candidade of the coming version 2.9.0 of amavisd-new
is available at:

   http://www.ijs.si/software/amavisd/amavisd-new-2.9.0-rc1.tar.xz
   http://www.ijs.si/software/amavisd/amavisd-new-2.9.0-rc1.tar.bz2

Release notes are at:

   http://www.ijs.si/software/amavisd/release-notes.txt


The planned amavisd-new-2.8.2 from September 2013 was never released.
The version 2.9.0 incorporates all the changes from 2.8.2, refines
some of its code, adds more bug fixes, and most importantly provides
a new feature to facilitate monitoring and logging of mail traffic:
the structured logging in JSON format, fed through a redis database
which serves as a message queue & broker.

Apart from the above major new feature, a license on some utility
programs has been relaxed. For both of these reasons it was decided
that a version bump to version number 2.9 is appropriate.


amavisd-new-2.9.0 release notes


COMPATIBILITY

This version drops dependency on a Perl module Redis, and makes
dependencies on modules Convert::TNEF and Convert::UUlib truly optional.

The following change may affect third-party log parsers:

To facilitate forensic log analysis and troubleshooting, log entries
'FWD from' and 'SEND from' at level 1 now carry one additional
prefixed information field which is the unique internal mail_id of
the message, possibly followed by a parent_mail_id in parenthesis,
e.g.:
   (00525-02) XE9xnQYjrWyd FWD from <...> -> <...>, ...
   (00495-02) v1pyIOMQkUYD(CIcqao-vCDO9) SEND from <...> -> <...>, ...

No other incompatibilities with a previous version 2.8.1 are expected.


NEW FEATURES SUMMARY

- structured log/reporting to a Redis server in JSON format;

- IP address reputation (uses a Redis server);

- added two minor content categories to the major ccat CC_UNCHECKED
   (encrypted (=1) and over-limits/mail-bomb (=2) );

- introduced a by-recipient setting %final_destiny_maps_by_ccat.


RELAXED LICENSE

Some utility / auxiliary programs that were previously released under a
3-clause BSD license, are now available under a more relaxed 2-clause 
BSD
license (also known as a "Simplified BSD License" or a "FreeBSD 
License").

Affected programs are: amavis-mc, amavis-services, amavisd-status,
amavisd-snmp-subagent-zmq, amavisd-release, amavisd-submit, 
p0f-analyzer.pl,
amavisd-nanny, amavisd-agent, amavisd-snmp-subagent, amavisd-signer,
JpegTester.pm, and TinyRedis.pm.

Note that TinyRedis.pm is provided in the package as a separate file
and includes a documentation section. Its copy is also included in
the file amavisd, so that the separate file is not needed for Amavis
operation. The separate copy is provided under a 2-clause BSD license
so that it may be useful for third parties if desired. Eventually it
could be moved to CPAN as an independent module.

A license of the main program 'amavisd' remains unchanged GPLv2.


BUG FIXES

- fixed "Insecure dependency in sprintf" in Sophos SAVI av-scanner,
   reported by Maciej Uhlig;

- fixed the interface code to virus scanners Sophie, Trophie and 
fpscand,
   where a time-out on a long-running virus scan would leave a connection
   to the virus scanner open and a late response from a scanner to a
   previous request could be interpreted as a result of the current scan;
   reported by David Schweikert;

- fixed a bug in transforming an IPv6 alternative form IP address into
   a preferred form. One effect of this bug was declaring an IPv4-mapped
   IPv6 address as syntactically incorrect; reported by Patrick Domack;

- if SQL logging was disabled a pen pals feature was non-functional even
   when a Redis storage back-end was available and collecting data; now
   pen pals is fully functional with a Redis database back-end and no 
SQL;

- provided our own Redis client code, avoiding Redis CPAN module bugs,
   its slowness and non-support for IPv6.
   The noteworthy Redis CPAN module bug is the #38 (failing to re-select
   a non-zero-index database after an automatic re-connect to a server).
   See: https://github.com/melo/perl-redis/issues/38
        https://github.com/melo/perl-redis/issues/28

- fixed a regexp in parsing wildcarded signing domain in a DKIM key
   declaration and in a wildcarded sender pattern of signing options
   (this feature is rarely used, exists for compatibility with 
dkim_milter);

- dropped hard-coded dependency on modules Convert::TNEF and 
Convert::UUlib.
   The Convert::TNEF was made optional in amavisd-new-2.8.0, but the
   program still failed if the module could not be loaded at startup.

   Both of these modules are now loaded at run time when first used, if
   specified in the @decoders setting. The use of module Convert::UUlib
   (the do_ascii entry) is disabled in a default setting of @decoders,
   and the module Convert::TNEF (the do_tnef entry) is not used
   if an external TNEF decoder (the do_tnef_ext entry) is available,
   or if disabled in the @decoders list.


Please see the full release notes at:

   http://www.ijs.si/software/amavisd/release-notes.txt

for details in sections:

   NEW FEATURES
   OTHER
   WHY REDIS?



Mark