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In SpamAssassin version 4.0.0 all rules, functions, command line options and modules that contain "whitelist" or "blacklist" have been renamed to contain "welcomelist" and "blocklist" terms. This allows acronyms like WL and BL to remain the same. Previous options will continue work at least until version 4.1.0 is released. If you have local settings including scores or meta rules referring to old rule names, these should be changed and "enable_compat welcomelist_blocklist" added in init.pre.

Examples:

• Rule USER_IN_WHITELIST is now named USER_IN_WELCOMELIST
• spamassassin command line option --add-to-blacklist is now --add-to-blocklist

If you are installing a fresh 4.0 version without any existing local installation/rules, no further actions are needed. Simply use the new naming.

If you upgrade from older version to 4.0, by default the stock sa-update ruleset will use both old and new rules for backwards compatibility, for example:

-0.0 USER_IN_WELCOMELIST    User is listed in 'welcomelist_from'
-100 USER_IN_WHITELIST      DEPRECATED: See USER_IN_WELCOMELIST

First you should verify if you are using any of the old naming in your local rules, you can use grep to find them:

egrep -i '(whitelist|blacklist)' /etc/mail/spamassassin/*.cf

If there are any meta-rules referring to rulenames like USER_IN_WHITELIST or you have set local scores for rules like USER_IN_WHITELIST or use commands like "auto_whitelist_path", rename all by replacing white→welcome and black→block.

After all naming in your local configuration is fixed, you can activate version compatibility by adding this in your local.pre or init.pre file (any *.pre file will do, they are not overwritten by any installer):

enable_compat welcomelist_blocklist

In a fresh 4.0 installation, this same declaration is added by default in init.pre.

With the compatibility activated, stock sa-update ruleset will now only use the new rulenames:

-100 USER_IN_WELCOMELIST    User is listed in 'welcomelist_from'