NAME
Mail::SpamAssassin::Plugin - SpamAssassin plugin base class
SYNOPSIS
SpamAssassin configuration:
loadplugin MyPlugin /path/to/myplugin.pm
Perl code:
package MyPlugin;
use Mail::SpamAssassin::Plugin;
our @ISA = qw(Mail::SpamAssassin::Plugin);
sub new {
my ($class, $mailsa) = @_;
# the usual perlobj boilerplate to create a subclass object
$class = ref($class) || $class;
my $self = $class->SUPER::new($mailsa);
bless ($self, $class);
# then register an eval rule, if desired...
$self->register_eval_rule ("check_for_foo");
# and return the new plugin object
return $self;
}
...methods...
1;
DESCRIPTION
This is the base class for SpamAssassin plugins; all plugins must be objects that implement this class.
This class provides no-op stub methods for all the callbacks that a plugin can receive. It is expected that your plugin will override one or more of these stubs to perform its actions.
SpamAssassin implements a plugin chain; each callback event is passed to each of the registered plugin objects in turn. Any plugin can call $self->inhibit_further_callbacks()
to block delivery of that event to later plugins in the chain. This is useful if the plugin has handled the event, and there will be no need for later plugins to handle it as well.
If you're looking to write a simple eval rule, skip straight to register_eval_rule()
, below.
INTERFACE
In all the plugin APIs below, options
refers to a reference to a hash containing name-value pairs. This is used to ensure future-compatibility, in that we can add new options in future without affecting objects built to an earlier version of the API.
For example, here would be how to print out the line
item in a parse_config()
method:
sub parse_config {
my ($self, $opts) = @_;
print "MyPlugin: parse_config got ".$opts->{line}."\n";
}
METHODS
The following methods can be overridden by subclasses to handle events that SpamAssassin will call back to:
- $plugin = MyPluginClass->new ($mailsaobject)
-
Constructor. Plugins that need to register themselves will need to define their own; the default super-class constructor will work fine for plugins that just override a method.
Note that subclasses must provide the
$mailsaobject
to the superclass constructor, like so:my $self = $class->SUPER::new($mailsaobject);
Lifecycle note: plugins that will need to store per-scan state should not store that on the Plugin object; see
check_start()
below. It is also likewise recommended that configuration settings be stored on the Conf object; seeparse_config()
. - $plugin->parse_config ( { options ... } )
-
Parse a configuration line that hasn't already been handled.
options
is a reference to a hash containing these options:- line
-
The line of configuration text to parse. This has leading and trailing whitespace, and comments, removed.
- key
-
The configuration key; ie. the first "word" on the line.
- value
-
The configuration value; everything after the first "word" and any whitespace after that.
- conf
-
The
Mail::SpamAssassin::Conf
object on which the configuration data should be stored. - user_config
-
A boolean:
1
if reading a user's configuration,0
if reading the system-wide configuration files.
If the configuration line was a setting that is handled by this plugin, the method implementation should call
$self->inhibit_further_callbacks()
.If the setting is not handled by this plugin, the method should return
0
so that a later plugin may handle it, or so that SpamAssassin can output a warning message to the user if no plugin understands it.Lifecycle note: it is suggested that configuration be stored on the
Mail::SpamAssassin::Conf
object in use, instead of the plugin object itself. That can be found as$plugin->{main}->{conf}
. This allows per-user and system-wide configuration to be dealt with correctly, with per-user overriding system-wide. - $plugin->finish_parsing_end ( { options ... } )
-
Signals that the configuration parsing has just finished, and SpamAssassin is nearly ready to check messages.
options
is a reference to a hash containing these options:- conf
-
The
Mail::SpamAssassin::Conf
object on which the configuration data should be stored.
Note: there are no guarantees that the internal data structures of SpamAssassin will not change from release to release. In particular to this plugin hook, if you modify the rules data structures in a third-party plugin, all bets are off until such time that an API is present for modifying that configuration data.
- $plugin->signal_user_changed ( { options ... } )
-
Signals that the current user has changed for a new one.
- username
-
The new user's username.
- user_dir
-
The new user's home directory. (equivalent to
~
.) - userstate_dir
-
The new user's storage directory. (equivalent to
~/.spamassassin
.)
-
Validates that a given username is authorized to use certain services.
In order to authorize a user, the plugin should first check that it can handle any of the services passed into the method and then set the value for each allowed service to true (or any non-negative value).
The current supported services are: bayessql
- username
-
A username
- services
-
Reference to a hash containing the services you want to check.
{
'bayessql' => 0
}
- conf
-
The
Mail::SpamAssassin::Conf
object on which the configuration data should be stored.
- $plugin->check_start ( { options ... } )
-
Signals that a message check operation is starting.
- permsgstatus
-
The
Mail::SpamAssassin::PerMsgStatus
context object for this scan.Lifecycle note: it is recommended that rules that need to track test state on a per-scan basis should store that state on this object, not on the plugin object itself, since the plugin object will be shared between all active scanners.
The message being scanned is accessible through the
$permsgstatus->get_message()
API; there are a number of other public APIs on that object, too. SeeMail::SpamAssassin::PerMsgStatus
perldoc.
- $plugin->extract_metadata ( { options ... } )
-
Signals that a message is being mined for metadata. Some plugins may wish to add their own metadata as well.
- msg
-
The
Mail::SpamAssassin::Message
object for this message.
- $plugin->parsed_metadata ( { options ... } )
-
Signals that a message's metadata has been parsed, and can now be accessed by the plugin.
- permsgstatus
-
The
Mail::SpamAssassin::PerMsgStatus
context object for this scan.
- $plugin->check_tick ( { options ... } )
-
Called periodically during a message check operation. A callback set for this method is a good place to run through an event loop dealing with network events triggered in a
parse_metadata
method, for example.- permsgstatus
-
The
Mail::SpamAssassin::PerMsgStatus
context object for this scan.
- $plugin->check_post_dnsbl ( { options ... } )
-
Called after the DNSBL results have been harvested. This is a good place to harvest your own asynchronously-started network lookups.
- permsgstatus
-
The
Mail::SpamAssassin::PerMsgStatus
context object for this scan.
- $plugin->check_post_learn ( { options ... } )
-
Called after auto-learning may (or may not) have taken place. If you wish to perform additional learning, whether or not auto-learning happens, this is the place to do it.
- permsgstatus
-
The
Mail::SpamAssassin::PerMsgStatus
context object for this scan.
- $plugin->check_end ( { options ... } )
-
Signals that a message check operation has just finished, and the results are about to be returned to the caller.
- permsgstatus
-
The
Mail::SpamAssassin::PerMsgStatus
context object for this scan. The current score, names of rules that hit, etc. can be retrieved using the public APIs on this object.
- $plugin->autolearn_discriminator ( { options ... } )
-
Control whether a just-scanned message should be learned as either spam or ham. This method should return one of
1
to learn the message as spam,0
to learn as ham, orundef
to not learn from the message at all.- permsgstatus
-
The
Mail::SpamAssassin::PerMsgStatus
context object for this scan.
- $plugin->autolearn ( { options ... } )
-
Signals that a message is about to be auto-learned as either ham or spam.
- permsgstatus
-
The
Mail::SpamAssassin::PerMsgStatus
context object for this scan. - isspam
-
1
if the message is spam,0
if ham.
- $plugin->per_msg_finish ( { options ... } )
-
Signals that a
Mail::SpamAssassin::PerMsgStatus
object is being destroyed, and any per-scan context held on that object by this plugin should be destroyed as well.Normally, any member variables on the
PerMsgStatus
object will be cleaned up automatically -- but if your plugin has made a circular reference on that object, this is the place to break them so that garbage collection can operate correctly.- permsgstatus
-
The
Mail::SpamAssassin::PerMsgStatus
context object for this scan.
- $plugin->bayes_learn ( { options ... } )
-
Called at the end of a bayes learn operation.
This phase is the best place to map the raw (original) token value to the SHA1 hashed value.
- toksref
-
Reference to hash returned by call to tokenize. The hash takes the format of:
{
'SHA1 Hash Value' => 'raw (original) value'
}
NOTE: This data structure has changed since it was originally introduced in version 3.0.0. The values are no longer perl anonymous hashes, they are a single string containing the raw token value. You can test for backwards compatability by checking to see if the value for a key is a reference to a perl HASH, for instance:
if (ref($toksref->{$sometokenkey}) eq 'HASH') {...
If it is, then you are using the old interface, otherwise you are using the current interface.
- isspam
-
Boolean value stating what flavor of message the tokens represent, if true then message was specified as spam, false is nonspam. Note, when function is scan then isspam value is not valid.
- msgid
-
Generated message id of the message just learned.
- msgatime
-
Received date of the current message or current time if received date could not be determined. In addition, if the receive date is more than 24 hrs into the future it will be reset to current datetime.
- $plugin->bayes_forget ( { options ... } )
-
Called at the end of a bayes forget operation.
- toksref
-
Reference to hash returned by call to tokenize. See bayes_learn documentation for additional information on the format.
- isspam
-
Boolean value stating what flavor of message the tokens represent, if true then message was specified as spam, false is nonspam. Note, when function is scan then isspam value is not valid.
- msgid
-
Generated message id of the message just forgotten.
- $plugin->bayes_scan ( { options ... } )
-
Called at the end of a bayes scan operation. NOTE: Will not be called in case of error or if the message is otherwise skipped.
- toksref
-
Reference to hash returned by call to tokenize. See bayes_learn documentation for additional information on the format.
- probsref
-
Reference to hash of calculated probabilities for tokens found in the database.
{
'SHA1 Hash Value' => { 'prob' => 'calculated probability', 'spam_count' => 'Total number of spam msgs w/ token', 'ham_count' => 'Total number of ham msgs w/ token', 'atime' => 'Atime value for token in database' }
}
- score
-
Score calculated for this particular message.
- msgatime
-
Calculated atime of the message just learned, note it may have been adjusted if it was determined to be too far into the future.
- significant_tokens
-
Array ref of the tokens found to be significant in determining the score for this message.
- $plugin->plugin_report ( { options ... } )
-
Called if the message is to be reported as spam. If the reporting system is available, the variable
$options-<gt
{report}-><gt>report_available}> should be set to1
; if the reporting system successfully reported the message, the variable$options-<gt
{report}-><gt>report_return}> should be set to1
.- report
-
Reference to the Reporter object (
$options-<gt
{report}> in the paragraph above.) - text
-
Reference to a markup removed copy of the message in scalar string format.
- msg
-
Reference to the original message object.
- $plugin->plugin_revoke ( { options ... } )
-
Called if the message is to be reported as ham (revokes a spam report). If the reporting system is available, the variable
$options-<gt
{revoke}-><gt>revoke_available}> should be set to1
; if the reporting system successfully revoked the message, the variable$options-<gt
{revoke}-><gt>revoke_return}> should be set to1
.- revoke
-
Reference to the Reporter object (
$options-<gt
{revoke}> in the paragraph above.) - text
-
Reference to a markup removed copy of the message in scalar string format.
- msg
-
Reference to the original message object.
- $plugin->whitelist_address( { options ... } )
-
Called when a request is made to add an address to a persistent address list.
- address
-
Address you wish to add.
- $plugin->blacklist_address( { options ... } )
-
Called when a request is made to add an address to a persistent address list.
- address
-
Address you wish to add.
- $plugin->remove_address( { options ... } )
-
Called when a request is made to remove an address to a persistent address list.
- address
-
Address you wish to remove.
- $plugin->spamd_child_init ()
-
Called when a new child starts up under spamd.
- $plugin->spamd_child_post_connection_close ()
-
Called when child returns from handling a connection.
If there was an accept failure, the child will die and this code will not be called.
- $plugin->finish ()
-
Called when the
Mail::SpamAssassin
object is destroyed.
HELPER APIS
These methods provide an API for plugins to register themselves to receive specific events, or control the callback chain behaviour.
- $plugin->register_eval_rule ($nameofevalsub)
-
Plugins that implement an eval test will need to call this, so that SpamAssassin calls into the object when that eval test is encountered. See the REGISTERING EVAL RULES section for full details.
- $plugin->inhibit_further_callbacks()
-
Tells the plugin handler to inhibit calling into other plugins in the plugin chain for the current callback. Frequently used when parsing configuration settings using
parse_config()
. - dbg($message)
-
Output a debugging message
$message
, if the SpamAssassin object is running with debugging turned on.NOTE: This function is not available in the package namespace of general plugins and can't be called via $self->dbg(). If a plugin wishes to output debug information, it should call
Mail::SpamAssassin::Plugin::dbg($msg)
. - info($message)
-
Output an informational message
$message
, if the SpamAssassin object is running with informational messages turned on.NOTE: This function is not available in the package namespace of general plugins and can't be called via $self->dbg(). If a plugin wishes to output debug information, it should call
Mail::SpamAssassin::Plugin::dbg($msg)
.
REGISTERING EVAL RULES
Plugins that implement an eval test must register the methods that can be called from rules in the configuration files, in the plugin class' constructor.
For example,
$plugin->register_eval_rule ('check_for_foo')
will cause $plugin->check_for_foo()
to be called for this SpamAssassin rule:
header FOO_RULE eval:check_for_foo()
Note that eval rules are passed the following arguments:
- - The plugin object itself
- - The
Mail::SpamAssassin::PerMsgStatus
object calling the rule - - standard arguments for the rule type in use
- - any and all arguments as specified in the configuration file
In other words, the eval test method should look something like this:
sub check_for_foo {
my ($self, $permsgstatus, ...arguments...) = @_;
...code returning 0 or 1
}
Note that the headers can be accessed using the get()
method on the Mail::SpamAssassin::PerMsgStatus
object, and the body by get_decoded_stripped_body_text_array()
and other similar methods. Similarly, the Mail::SpamAssassin::Conf
object holding the current configuration may be accessed through $permsgstatus->{main}->{conf}
.
The eval rule should return 1
for a hit, or 0
if the rule is not hit.
State for a single message being scanned should be stored on the $checker
object, not on the $self
object, since $self
persists between scan operations. See the 'lifecycle note' on the check_start()
method above.
STANDARD ARGUMENTS FOR RULE TYPES
Plugins will be called with the same arguments as a standard EvalTest. Different rule types receive different information by default:
- - header tests: no extra arguments
- - body tests: fully rendered message as array reference
- - rawbody tests: fully decoded message as array reference
- - full tests: pristine message as scalar reference
The configuration file arguments will be passed in after the standard arguments.
SEE ALSO
Mail::SpamAssassin
Mail::SpamAssassin::PerMsgStatus
http://wiki.apache.org/spamassassin/PluginWritingTips
http://issues.apache.org/SpamAssassin/show_bug.cgi?id=2163