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From: Mike Clarke <jmc-freebsd2@milibyte.co.uk>
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Date: Tue, 10 Jun 2014 17:03:40 +0100
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Subject: Re: sa-update fails - no DNS for updates.spamassassin.org
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On Tuesday 10 June 2014 13:13:33 RW wrote:
> The two DNS lookups that failed aren't supposed to work anyway. If
> the problem persists try this:
> 
> 
> $ host -t txt   mirrors.updates.spamassassin.org
> mirrors.updates.spamassassin.org descriptive text
> "http://spamassassin.apache.org/updates/MIRRORED.BY"
> 
> $ host -t txt   0.4.3.updates.spamassassin.org
> 0.4.3.updates.spamassassin.org is an alias for
> 2.3.3.updates.spamassassin.org. 2.3.3.updates.spamassassin.org
> descriptive text "1588424"

The host commands give the same results for me too but sa-update 
fails.

It seems to be happening in this section of code (lines 539 to 547):

    if (!defined $newV) {
      my @mirs = do_dns_query("mirrors.$channel");
      if (defined shift @mirs) {
        dbg("channel: no updates available, skipping channel");
      } else {
        channel_failed("channel: no 'mirrors.$channel' record found");
      }
      next;
    }

At this point $newV is defined but is an empty string so do_dns_query 
is invoked to lookup the TXT record for 
mirrors.updates.spamassassin.org which returns an empty arrayand 
results in channel_failed("channel: no 'mirrors.$channel' record 
found").

-- 
Mike Clarke