HOWTO: ASSP (beta)

[nobaloney]

Why dont you concentrate on cpanel. We have already finished the entire interface for ASSP on DA so your wasting your time.

It took me a while, but I think I've finally figured out why you're coming down on me and on SultanHost.com. And perhaps on smtalk as welll.

It appears you think of this as some kind of contest between you and others to have the best solution out there.

What ever happened to open source and sharing?

Pardon me if I'm wrong, simply respond, point out that I'm wrong and why, and I'll delete this post and any others that refer to it.

Jeff

 

[Maniak]

Jeff,

You made a great job creating and incrementing time after time the exim configuration files, the people writing ASSP is probably also doing the same on their side.

You are asking what does ASSP, here is the feature list :

What features make ASSP great?

1. Easy browser-based setup (optional).
2. Uses your existing message transport and existing SMTP server.
3. Works with Sendmail, qmail, Postfix, Imail, Exchange, Courier, Mercury, Lotus Notes, and all other standard SMTP servers.
4. Runs on Linux, Unix, Windows, OS X, OS/2, and more.
5. Automatically customizes to your site's unique email profile.
6. Automatic whitelist -- noone you email will ever be blocked.
7. Early Sender validation -- Kills most spam before it ever reaches the server.
8. Senders receive immediate notification if mail is blocked but no erroneous bounces are ever generated.
9. Redlist keeps an address off the whitelist.
10. No-processing addresses pass through.
11. Makes use of honeypot type spambucket addresses to automatically recognize spam and update your spam database.
12. Bayesian filter intelligently classifies email into spam and non-spam.
13. Supports additional site-defined regular expressions to identify spam or non-spam email.
14. Can optionally block all non-whitelisted email (for anti-spam zelots).
15. Mime encoded and other camouflaged spam is also recognized.
16. Automatically maintains the spam and non-spam databases.
17. Accepts whitelist submissions and spam error reports by authorized email.
18. Optionally rejects executable attachments from non-whitelisted (or all) addresses.
19. Free (as in speech) software -- Licensed under the GPL.
20. Practically no maintenance required.
21. Active user community and email list for support questions.
22. Source code included if you need to customize your installation.
23. Runs as a service in Windows NT / 2000.
24. Optionally blocks no mail but adds an email header and/or updates the message subject.
25. Optionally uses community-based spam statistics to identify hosts that are likely to send spam or non-spam mail.
26. In *nix environments can switch to non-root user. Also supports chroot jail.
27. Individual users can be configured to receive all mail.
28. Shows detailed analysis of spam rating process for specific messages.
29. Option to forward a copy of every rejected mail to an address.
30. Can block spam-bombs (when spammers forge your domain in the from field).
31. Keeps spam statistics for your site.
32. Detailed documentation.
33. Can listen on more than one smtp port.
34. And much more!

 

[nobaloney]

Thanks, Maniak. This is very helpful. I'm going to take some time to go through it today and verify what can and can't easily be done with exim.conf (without the overhead of yet another daemon). And of those that can't easily be done with exim.conf, how they can be done.

One thing I don't know from reading the threads here and from your post, refers to:

Easy browser-based setup (optional)

If I used it today with DirectAdmin, would I have this? On a per domain user basis for all the domains for the user, or on a per domain basis? Or has someone in our community made something else available? Or will there soon be something else available.

Should I decide to test it (I'm about ready to make that plunge ) which instructions (can you give me a URL for a post?) should I use for a DA system running on the same server?

Thanks.

Jeff

 

[smtalk]

jlasman, SultanHost.com is creating the plugin now (that's why he asked you for exim files (that he attached)) So, we just need to wait.

 

[SultanHost.com]

Perhaps we may give you an access to one of our developer servers with cPanel and ASSP X?

It will give you an idea on how it would look at DA (especiially on admin & user's sides).

 

[pucky]

It took me a while, but I think I've finally figured out why you're coming down on me and on SultanHost.com. And perhaps on smtalk as welll.

It appears you think of this as some kind of contest between you and others to have the best solution out there.

What ever happened to open source and sharing?

Pardon me if I'm wrong, simply respond, point out that I'm wrong and why, and I'll delete this post and any others that refer to it.

Jeff

Of course you deleted it. As anything that doesnt suit you is removed. Censorship at its worst.

 

[nobaloney]

I still don't understand why you think anyone wants to read personal attacks.

Jeff

 

[dlogan]

This sounds great! Any idea on a time frame for release? Thanks!

Doug Logan

 

[woyteck]

I just tried version 1.2.6 and it's okay.
But when I installed version 1.3.1
there's return message shown:
PERM_FAILURE: SMTP Error (state 9): 530 Relaying not allowed

I have changed the localDomains to localDomains:=file:../../../etc/virtual/domains and
error message incomplete transaction (QUIT) shown in /var/log/exim/mainlog

Please advice. Thanks

yes, I have the same problem with version 1.3.3.8

Well it works but only when I did this:
http://help.directadmin.com/item.php?id=51
and ticked (skip local domains check, let the mailserver do it)

there is something fishy with this local domains checking... must be a bug in ASSP or something.


Guys,
Any update about embedding ASSP into DA?

 

[nobaloney]

Guys,
Any update about embedding ASSP into DA?

I guess I'm the guy since I'm the maintainer for exim.conf for DirectAdmin.

So what's a good reason to put a proxy in front of exim on DirectAdmin? A reason so good that DirectAdmin should do it? What specifically can you do with ASSP out of the box that you can't do with the latest beta of exim spamblocker?

Jeff

 

[mattb]

I've been watching this thread for a while....

Personally I'm going to dump use of SpamBlocker (no offence Jeff) -- I've just found that the RBLs that SpamBlocker are using are not as reliable over the past 3-6 months as they have been historically.

I'm finding many of our users are now contacting us about email that 'never arrives'... on closer inspection, it appears the spamblocker RBLs are flagging it as 'spam' and throwing it.

I'm looking seriously at DSPAM, and potentially looking at releasing it as a plugin for DA.

I like the idea of DSPAM quarantining Emails, so that users have the final choice of what is thrown away/kept. I'm also going to have this auto-purge after 30 days (the spam folder).

DSPAM also 'learns' your Email patterns and frequent emailers to your customer inboxes are whitelisted.

It appears a nicer solution and ensures the calls of 'missing Email' are likely to disappear/diminish.

 

[Lhadatt]

This is off topic, but...

I've been watching this thread for a while....

Personally I'm going to dump use of SpamBlocker (no offence Jeff) -- I've just found that the RBLs that SpamBlocker are using are not as reliable over the past 3-6 months as they have been historically.

I'm finding many of our users are now contacting us about email that 'never arrives'... on closer inspection, it appears the spamblocker RBLs are flagging it as 'spam' and throwing it.

Then why not remove or tune the RBLs to something that works for you? This is what I've done, and Spamblocker does a decent job of blocking 95% of what we were getting before it was implemented.

I'm looking seriously at DSPAM, and potentially looking at releasing it as a plugin for DA.

DSPAM is a nice solution, but I tried the Howto here to get it to work with Exim/DA a while ago and ran into big problems. If you can get it to work, please post a new Howto. I'm eager to see a production-level solution for deploying DSPAM.

 

[mattb]

This is off topic, but...


Then why not remove or tune the RBLs to something that works for you? This is what I've done, and Spamblocker does a decent job of blocking 95% of what we were getting before it was implemented.

I've spent a lot of time with thet RBLs... though I am starting to think that RBLs aren't the answer. Sure they block known spam, however it doesn't clean up the stuff that is unknown.

I'm finding that often the RBLs are blocking legit large scale ISP SMTP servers after a spammer utilizes that STMP. Whilst it does block those spam messages, it seems it's throwing out the baby with the water... and as a result also blocking legitimate mail being send from them to valid users.

It's become a problem now for my customers, and as such has also became a reoccurring problem for myself.

Ideally just throwing away messages doesn't cut it, the idea of a quarantine area where my customers can either release or purge messages is the best solution. I'm also looking at setting it up so we auto-purge messages after 30 days from the quarantine.

DSPAM is a nice solution, but I tried the Howto here to get it to work with Exim/DA a while ago and ran into big problems. If you can get it to work, please post a new Howto. I'm eager to see a production-level solution for deploying DSPAM.

Yes, I've followed those too.
Currently I'm wading through a bunch of documentation for the best way to integrate DSPAM into a standard DA install at the moment.

I will post a HOWTO once I've worked out the solution that works.
I've started a thread on discussing DSPAM (no need to hi-jack this thread), so lets move over there to discuss.

 

[nobaloney]

I'm finding that often the RBLs are blocking legit large scale ISP SMTP servers after a spammer utilizes that STMP. Whilst it does block those spam messages, it seems it's throwing out the baby with the water... and as a result also blocking legitimate mail being send from them to valid users.

That's not happening for us using the latest copy of SpamBlocker3 but with the domain-specific blocks removed. You might want to try it. We find it blocks over 90% of the email sent to the server with almost no false positives, and only one or two unblock requests per MONTH.

Ideally just throwing away messages doesn't cut it,

SpamBlocker NEVER throws away a message. It refuses to accept it. The difference is huge because properly configured mailservers will notify the original sender (not the from address but the real original sender) if the mail is blocked).

the idea of a quarantine area where my customers can either release or purge messages is the best solution.

Not for me. I'd have to look through over a thousand of emails a day. Using SpamBlocker, SpamAssassin and DA Spam Filters I only have to look through about 20 emails daily.

I'm also looking at setting it up so we auto-purge messages after 30 days from the quarantine.

And if you do that sooner or later you'll throw away an important piece of email.

Plus you're using machine cycles to receive all that email. The amount of spam on the internet went up about 400% between January 2007 and January 2008. SpamBlocker has kept up, and we receive actually less spam now than we did a year ago. If you want to accept it all you'll be buying larger systems every year.

But of course that's your choice .

Jeff

 

[woyteck]

I guess I'm the guy since I'm the maintainer for exim.conf for DirectAdmin.

Good.

So what's a good reason to put a proxy in front of exim on DirectAdmin? A reason so good that DirectAdmin should do it? What specifically can you do with ASSP out of the box that you can't do with the latest beta of exim spamblocker?
Jeff

Oh c'mon man! Let people choose, don't tell them what's the best for them - history shows that it never was a great way of dealing with issues (i.e. hence the communism).

I've been using spamassassin for years, then the DA spamblocker for over 2 years, but after using spamblocker + spam assassin on one of the machines - the customers weren't satisfied!
SO I have found the ASSP and installed it on a different machine with exim and no admin panel - and it works great. Customers which have accounts on this machine really do not complain any more.

So is it only me, or my customers who really pay for my services (and indirectly for DA)?

But as my customers demand an admin panel and good anti-spam software, I will either struggle to install ASSP on top of DA's exim or will just drop DA and choose a different product.
So? Which way should I go?

 

[nobaloney]

You can go any way you want. You can even speak to John and Mark and give them a finished product and ask them if they want to use it.

What you can't do is shame me into writing something I don't have time to write by calling me a communist.

Note that in the last week the amount of spam many of us were receiving went up 30x. Not 30%, 30 times. And within two days I had a working updated file to the extent that we now get just as little spam as we did before that happened, and with no strain on our servers.

Please feel free to write anything you want, yourself, and to offier it to DirectAdmin staff, so I can retire.

But this thread is now closed.

Jeff