[exim] deferring when clamd/spamd is down

Hello fellow exim users,

I'm using clamav and sa via exiscan and I thought everything was fine
until lately. After upgrading sa, I forgot to restart it. And when I
tested my exim installation, I realized that when either spamd or clamd
is down, mails can enter my system without being content scanned for
spam or malware.

If I put the "spam" or "malware" condition in a deny statement, the mail
gets deferred as expected, if spamd or clamd is down. But if I have
these conditions in a warn statement, the warn statement gets ignored
and processing goes on to the next statement. Eventually, the mail
enters my system, which is not good.

To avoid this and have the mails deferred as long as one of the demons
is down, I implemented the kind of tri-state logic that was given before
on the list for sender verification (ok/bad/unknown). Since this is not
the most beautiful solution in my eyes, I wonder whether there is
another way to achieve the same goal. How do others on the list tackle
this situation?


Thanks for your feedback,
Patrick