Facilitating installation and update of anti-spam filter

[Richard Kettlewell]

On 10/07/2022 11:20, Julien ÉLIE wrote:
> Hi all,
> 
> Removing from TODO (which should one day be moved to the Github issue 
> system) what has been done since the last 2.6.0 major release, I see:
> 
> * Add a generic, modular anti-spam and anti-abuse filter, off by default,
>    but coming with INN and prominently mentioned in the INSTALL
>    documentation.  [Andrew Gierth has work in progress that may be usable
>    for this.]
> 
> I do not know where I can find his work.  Nevertheless, it may not 
> easily integrate into our current releases.
> 
> What would you think of having an "updatenewsfilter" program (or any 
> better name) that would permit installing Cleanfeed and/or PyClean (to 
> the choice of the news admin) and updating an existing installation?
> 
> It would compare installed files with files from their upstream Github 
> repository, show the differences to the news admin, and update them if 
> asked to.
> If the news server does not have Internet access, then installation 
> could be done from a local directory.
> 
> This program could be run out of cron, and send a mail if a new version 
> should be deployed.
> 
> 
> ... and this program could also do the same for control.ctl and maybe 
> other configuration files.

Some kind of strategy for keeping control.ctl up to date would be nice.

I don't see INN as particularly unique here. There are other kinds of 
configuration that may need to be updated independently from the code 
that uses them, e.g. root CAs, DNS root hints, timezone policies, etc. 
In some cases ordinary software package management ecosystems already do 
the job adequately, it would be nice if that could be the case here 
rather than inventing someting new for INN?

ttfn/rjk