FuzzyOcr on Debian sarge

This article covers the installation of FuzzyOcr on Debian sarge including update to packages from backports.org. For informations how to install packages from bpo see here!

Update spamassassin:

# aptitude -t sarge-backports install spamassassin

Keep in mind, that there are essential changes in configuration, so you need to check it to match your needs!

Install other required packages:

# aptitude -t sarge-backports install gocr libungif-bin \
libimage-exif-perl libimage-exiftool-perl libstring-approx-perl \
imagemagick netpbm

Install and patch FuzzyOrc:

# cd /usr/local/src/
# wget \

http://users.own-hero.net/~decoder/fuzzyocr/fuzzyocr-2.3b.tar.gz

# tar xzvf fuzzyocr-2.3b.tar.gz
# wget \

http://www200.pair.com/mecham/spam/fuzzyocr-23b-hashdb-poison.patch

# cd FuzzyOcr-2.3b
# patch FuzzyOcr.pm < ../fuzzyocr-23b-hashdb-poison.patch
# cp FuzzyOcr.pm /usr/share/perl5/Mail/SpamAssassin/Plugin/
# cp FuzzyOcr.cf /etc/spamassassin/
# cp FuzzyOcr.words.sample /etc/spamassassin/FuzzyOcr.words

Configure FuzzyOcr:

# echo “loadplugin FuzzyOcr /usr/share/perl5/Mail/SpamAssassin/Plugin/FuzzyOcr.pm” \
>> /etc/spamassassin/v310.pre
# sed -i \
“s/^loadplugin\ FuzzyOcr\ FuzzyOcr.pm/#loadplugin\ FuzzyOcr\ FuzzyOcr.pm/” \
/etc/spamassassin/FuzzyOcr.cf
# sed -i \
“s/^#focr_base_score\ 4/focr_base_score\ 2/” \
/etc/spamassassin/FuzzyOcr.cf
# sed -i \
“s/^focr_logfile\ \/etc\/mail\/spamassassin/focr_logfile\ \/var\/log” \
/etc/spamassassin/FuzzyOcr.cf

For SpamAssassin less than 3.1.4:

# sed -i “s/^focr_pre314\ 0.0/focr_pre314\ 1.0/” \
/etc/spamassassin/FuzzyOcr.cf

Create Logfile:

# touch /var/log/FuzzyOcr.log
# chown nobody:nogroup /var/log/FuzzyOcr.log
# chmod 600 /var/log/FuzzyOcr.log

Verify Spamassassin config:

# spamassassin –lint

see also http://www200.pair.com/mecham/spam/image_spam.html

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