Topic: SME to SME 9 migration, 100's of packages listed in rpms-missing.txt

[Mophilly]

I am attempting to migrate an SME 8 system to SME9, using http://wiki.contribs.org/Moving_SME_to_new_Hardware. The SME8 machine was first created ages ago before SME7, brought along incrementally throughout the years, and includes a number of contribs from this web site as well as three custom mod's we have created, so I expected some manual work.

Well, I was surprised to see over 600 packages listed in rpms-missing.txt. Some I can identify as those we added, but I am dismayed there are so many to check.

I assume that affa listed them because of dependencies. However, is it that affa simply compared the list of installed rpms on the old system to that of the new?

Does anyone know of a way to determine which of these are candidates to be ignored or deleted?

[janet]

Mophilly

As it says in the Howto:

"In case you are upgrading the SME operating system to a higher version you may not only find the contribs installed in this list but all changes between the 2 systems - in this case you need to run this command onprodIP"

You will have to identify the contribs by comparing the lists.

[Mophilly]

Thanks, Janet. I had run the command on the production system; I should have mentioned that. It listed 17 "new" packages.

It seems, then, that the 17 packages should be installed and then run check of the target system again. Does sound right?

[janet]

Mophilly

All you need to do is install the contribs on the new system

[Mophilly]

All you need to do is install the contribs on the new system

I have installed all but one of the packages. I would be most grateful for any insight on these.

kernel-PAE.i686
  Is this needed in SME 9? The hardware platform is the same for both old and new server. The old server was migrated once before from an older 32bit Pentium class system. The current platform is 64bit, with a miserly 4GB of RAM.

Also, I see that smeserver-learn is deprecated. Is there a replacement? Spam continues to be a major problem on this server.

[Fumetto]

With 4Gb or less memory PAE isn't useful.

[janet]

Mophilly

You should not be concerned about installing or updating system files.
When you installled the operating system (SME9/CentOS), the installer looked at your hardware & installed what is required to match/suit.

The restore from backup transfers all your previous configuration & setup eg users ibays network settings databases & so on,
so all you need to do is install (compatible) contribs.
Note that most/all contribs needed updating to suit different paths in SME9, so you need to use SME9 compatible contribs.
If you "install/try to install" old versions for SME8 etc, then in most cases the contrib will not function.
 
If the contrib has been written correctly then it will also find the previous settings & configuration that were restored from backup.

Spam continues to be a major problem on this server.

Tell us what settings you use for spam control

[Mophilly]

Thank you, Janet, for the reply. Very helpful, as always.

Note that most/all contribs needed updating to suit different paths in SME9, so you need to use SME9 compatible contribs.

I found all packages except for smeserver-geoip in the standard repos. smeserver-geoip is in the sme8contribs repo. I installed it and it appears to work, but I realize there may be more subtle behavior to consider. Is smeserver-geoip still useful (but merely lacking an active maintainer) or should I seek another approach?

[Mophilly]

Tell us what settings you use for spam control

Several years ago I installed the smeserver-learn package and enabled baysian learning and the recommended RBLS. I have implemented DKIM with adjustments to the zone record accordingly and we use a commercial certificate. I attempted to use UCE but that proved to be very troublesome because of other mail service providers being unwilling to adopt the UCE way of resolving issues.

In the spring of this year, JP Pialasse was kind enough to help me improve our spam control by reviewing the then current settings and installing Fail2ban and smeserver-geoip. This has been a successful effort that reduced the spam by a good measure.

Recently, I noticed an increase in spam getting through, mostly in our oldest user accounts. These accounts have been active for more than ten years. I have also noticed that the spam arrives at almost predictable times of the day. For example, 6 AM to 10 AM Pacific time seems to be a busy time. Newer accounts are not having this trouble.

[janet]

Mophilly

While useful, banning senders is like chasing your own tail, it will always need to be done & re-done as spammers change IP's & locations etc.
Older users email addresses are generally far more widespread amongst other people, so the chances of other peoples address books being compromised/harvested increases, the longer a person/email address has been around.

Have you enabled executable content filtering in server manager Email panel ?
Obviously this will block messages with certain enabled attachment types, but if you can tolerate that, you will find a big reduction in spam & virus laden messages.
I get senders to send ZIP or other blocked attachments to an alternate external unpublished email account, or arrange for them to upload to the server, there are a number of contribs that will provide that functionality. Many common formats are still allowed through eg xls, doc, pdf, that do not have executable content.

Also is your SME server in server & gateway mode ? Better spam reduction is achieved in this mode.

What are the current RBL lists you have configured ?

[stephdl]

I found all packages except for smeserver-geoip in the standard repos. smeserver-geoip is in the sme8contribs repo. I installed it and it appears to work, but I realize there may be more subtle behavior to consider. Is smeserver-geoip still useful (but merely lacking an active maintainer) or should I seek another approach?

Sorry for the OT, we are migrating contribs from sme8 tree to sme9, obviously smeserver-geoip is not done yet like you found, can you add your inputs (workable, fails, errors in logs)  to http://bugs.contribs.org/show_bug.cgi?id=9042

a version for sme9 is waiting you at smedev (use a vm first)

yum install smeserver-geoip --enablerepo=smedev,epel

[stephdl]

Sorry for the OT, we are migrating contribs from sme8 tree to sme9, obviously smeserver-geoip is not done yet like you found, can you add your inputs (workable, fails, errors in logs)  to http://bugs.contribs.org/show_bug.cgi?id=9042

a version for sme9 is waiting you at smedev (use a vm first)

yum install smeserver-geoip --enablerepo=smedev,epel

no errors in logs the difference between sme8 and sme9 now is that when you do 'signal-event email-update' you download the geoip database and also each month by a cron job

* Sun Jun 14 2015 stephane de Labrusse <stephdl@de-labrusse.fr> 1.1.2-2
- added createlinks
- added actions and crontab to download geoip database