Regarding the date problem, I have added some debug statements to the spamass-milter code to get more info about the result of smfi_getsymval(ctx, "b").
This is the result: Jan 14 08:33:19 eroski spamass-milter[51579]: mlfi_connect: enter Jan 14 08:33:19 eroski spamass-milter[51579]: b macro is Wed, 14 Jan 2015 08:33:19 +0100 [...] Jan 14 08:33:20 eroski spamass-milter[51579]: mlfi_envrcpt: enter Jan 14 08:33:20 eroski spamass-milter[51579]: Total of 1 actual recipients Jan 14 08:33:20 eroski spamass-milter[51579]: Date for Received header line from macro b: Wed, 7 Jan 2015 11:04:24 +0100 It seems you are right about the sendmail b macro messed up, but only in certain callbacks to the milter. So this might be a sendmail / libmilter problem, or anything messes with the ctx structure. It only happens with some messages. I can reproduce it with messages from our web contact form (the web is running somewhere else), some other spam has a correct date at that spot. The bad date is somewhat constant. At the moment, it is Wed, 7 Jan 2015 11:04:24 +0100. It is directly related to sendmail daemon uptime: root@eroski:~# zgrep 'starting daemon' /var/log/mail.log* /var/log/mail.log.1:Jan 7 11:04:24 eroski sm-mta[50274]: starting daemon (8.14.4): SMTP+queueing@00:10:00 It is not directly related to server uptime: root@eroski:~# uptime 10:27:32 up 34 days, 19:49, 2 users, load average: 0,03, 0,22, 0,20 Neither is it related to spamass-milter daemon running time, I restarted it frequently. Restarting sendmail leads to a new constant date, the rest is the same. grepping the logfile for the macro b date: root@eroski:~# grep 'Date for Received header line from macro b' /var/log/mail.log Jan 13 11:11:54 eroski spamass-milter[32120]: Date for Received header line from macro b: Tue, 13 Jan 2015 11:11:53 +0100 Jan 13 11:24:24 eroski spamass-milter[32120]: Date for Received header line from macro b: Tue, 13 Jan 2015 11:24:23 +0100 Jan 13 11:24:26 eroski spamass-milter[32120]: Date for Received header line from macro b: Wed, 7 Jan 2015 11:04:24 +0100 Jan 13 11:25:46 eroski spamass-milter[32120]: Date for Received header line from macro b: Tue, 13 Jan 2015 11:25:44 +0100 Jan 13 11:28:32 eroski spamass-milter[32120]: Date for Received header line from macro b: Tue, 13 Jan 2015 11:28:31 +0100 Jan 13 11:35:34 eroski spamass-milter[32120]: Date for Received header line from macro b: Tue, 13 Jan 2015 11:35:32 +0100 Jan 13 11:40:06 eroski spamass-milter[32120]: Date for Received header line from macro b: Tue, 13 Jan 2015 11:40:04 +0100 Jan 13 11:43:04 eroski spamass-milter[32120]: Date for Received header line from macro b: Wed, 7 Jan 2015 11:04:24 +0100 Jan 13 11:49:30 eroski spamass-milter[32120]: Date for Received header line from macro b: Tue, 13 Jan 2015 11:49:28 +0100 Jan 13 11:50:54 eroski spamass-milter[32120]: Date for Received header line from macro b: Tue, 13 Jan 2015 11:50:53 +0100 Jan 13 12:02:54 eroski spamass-milter[32120]: Date for Received header line from macro b: Wed, 7 Jan 2015 11:04:24 +0100 Jan 13 12:03:08 eroski spamass-milter[32120]: Date for Received header line from macro b: Wed, 7 Jan 2015 11:04:24 +0100 Jan 13 12:07:06 eroski spamass-milter[32120]: Date for Received header line from macro b: Tue, 13 Jan 2015 12:07:05 +0100 Jan 13 12:10:16 eroski spamass-milter[32120]: Date for Received header line from macro b: Tue, 13 Jan 2015 12:10:15 +0100 Jan 13 12:13:07 eroski spamass-milter[32120]: Date for Received header line from macro b: Wed, 7 Jan 2015 11:04:24 +0100 Jan 13 12:14:47 eroski spamass-milter[32120]: Date for Received header line from macro b: Wed, 7 Jan 2015 11:04:24 +0100 Jan 13 12:14:53 eroski spamass-milter[32120]: Date for Received header line from macro b: Wed, 7 Jan 2015 11:04:24 +0100 Jan 13 12:15:25 eroski spamass-milter[32120]: Date for Received header line from macro b: Wed, 7 Jan 2015 11:04:24 +0100 Jan 13 12:15:30 eroski spamass-milter[32120]: Date for Received header line from macro b: Wed, 7 Jan 2015 11:04:24 +0100 Jan 13 12:15:34 eroski spamass-milter[32120]: Date for Received header line from macro b: Wed, 7 Jan 2015 11:04:24 +0100 Jan 13 12:15:42 eroski spamass-milter[32120]: Date for Received header line from macro b: Wed, 7 Jan 2015 11:04:24 +0100 Jan 13 12:16:24 eroski spamass-milter[32120]: Date for Received header line from macro b: Wed, 7 Jan 2015 11:04:24 +0100 Jan 13 12:16:43 eroski spamass-milter[32120]: Date for Received header line from macro b: Wed, 7 Jan 2015 11:04:24 +0100 Jan 13 12:25:56 eroski spamass-milter[32120]: Date for Received header line from macro b: Tue, 13 Jan 2015 12:25:54 +0100 Jan 13 12:26:03 eroski spamass-milter[32120]: Date for Received header line from macro b: Wed, 7 Jan 2015 11:04:24 +0100 Jan 13 12:30:20 eroski spamass-milter[32120]: Date for Received header line from macro b: Wed, 7 Jan 2015 11:04:24 +0100 Jan 13 12:34:33 eroski spamass-milter[32120]: Date for Received header line from macro b: Tue, 13 Jan 2015 12:34:32 +0100 Jan 13 12:34:48 eroski spamass-milter[32120]: Date for Received header line from macro b: Wed, 7 Jan 2015 11:04:24 +0100 Jan 13 12:41:34 eroski spamass-milter[32120]: Date for Received header line from macro b: Wed, 7 Jan 2015 11:04:24 +0100 Jan 13 12:50:46 eroski spamass-milter[32120]: Date for Received header line from macro b: Wed, 7 Jan 2015 11:04:24 +0100 Jan 13 12:54:24 eroski spamass-milter[32120]: Date for Received header line from macro b: Wed, 7 Jan 2015 11:04:24 +0100 [...] Counting the occurances of the problem: root@eroski:~# grep 'Date for Received header line from macro b' /var/log/mail.log| grep 'Wed, 7 Jan 2015 11:04:24 +0100'|wc -l 125 root@eroski:~# grep 'Date for Received header line from macro b' /var/log/mail.log| grep -v 'Wed, 7 Jan 2015 11:04:24 +0100'|wc -l 128 I have these definitions in my sendmail.mc file: define(`confMILTER_MACROS_CONNECT',`t, b, j, _, {daemon_name}, {if_name}, {if_addr}')dnl define(`confMILTER_MACROS_HELO',`s, {tls_version}, {cipher}, {cipher_bits}, {cert_subject}, {cert_issuer}')dnl define(`confMILTER_MACROS_ENVRCPT',`b, i, j, r, v, Z, _')dnl moritz -- aldebaran Programmierung & IT-Lösungen GmbH Softwareentwicklung Individualsoftware mail: i...@aldebaran.de http://www.aldebaran.de Tel: 0511-270 416-0 Fax: 0511-270 416-33 Adresse: Hanomaghof 2 Ort: D-30449 Hannover Geschäftsführung: Ursula (Usch) Wildt - Moritz Both Handelsregister: Amtsgericht Hannover HRB 56 991 -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-bugs-dist-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of "unsubscribe". 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