as any production system, a mail filter may become a pain when it comes to keep it up-to-date.
MailCleaner comes with a semi-automated way of getting new code and corrections. One part of the new code is beeing retrieved from .deb package, just as any other Debian package. The other part is beeing downloaded through the CVS archive.

In order to keep it simple, just follow these steps:

1. Log in your MailCleaner as root (either by ssh or directly on the console)
2. > cd /usr/mailcleaner (ou wherever you install MailCleaner sources)
3. > cvs update -dP updates
   From here, you will eventually see a bunch of new files being retrieved. These are chronological patches beeing produced since your last update process. You will have to apply them in order of patch name (names are construct with their release date, e.g. 2006090401 for the 4th September 2006, patch number 01).
   To see the last patch you applied, check the administration interface, under Monitoring→status. Do not worry if you apply a patch that were already been used as the system will just give up.
   Next follow these these steps for each patch to apply:
4. > bin/apply_update.sh PATCHNUMBER (where PATCHNUMBER is the patch name)
   After a while (wait time may vary largely, from less than 1 minute up to 30 minutes for large updates), if everything went ok, you will be greeted with a simple OK return value.

Check again in the MailCleaner admin interface in order to see the new patch level of your system.
The patches will take care of upgrading the code and binaries, either by dowloading new .deb packages, or by updating the CVS code. Sometimes, they will also apply modifications to the databases, rebuild some packages and restart some sevices. Downtimes should not be greater than a minute.

In the futur, this procedure may be simplified, or accessible through the admin interface. But it will never be completely automated.
If you would like to have fully automated updates, please consider the commercial support we provide here.