Mail Server With ASSP - any experiences?

[tom]

If read this howto http://www.howtoforge.com/antispam_smtp_proxy? to set up a spamproxy for postfix.

What are for experiences do you have with this solution?

Is it a "standalone" solution, I mean does it makes spamassassin unnecessary?

How is the need of ram by using this spamproxy, does it takes more than spamassassin?

It is realy more effective?

[falko]

I haven't tried it yet, but it looks promising. :)

[Hans]

If read this howto http://www.howtoforge.com/antispam_smtp_proxy? to set up a spamproxy for postfix.


Is this ASSP setup compatible with the perfect setup for Debian Sarge and ISPConfig?

I like to know this because ASSP seems to be a good anti spam solution.

[edge]

Hans,

I've installed it on a "test" server running Debian Sarge with ISPconfig.
It does look like it's working nice for now, but I do need to do some more testing 1st to make sure if it's really working a 100%

[Hans]

Hi Edge,

That's very good! :)
When you're finished with testing, please let me know, because ASSP look really promising.

I hope you can tell me how you did it on your Debian server with ISPConfig and which steps you've made.

[edge]

Hans,

The steps done are the same as in the howto.
One tip. MAKE SURE that in the:

Network Setup

SMTP Destination 127.0.0.1:25 The internal Postfix

V As a Daemon Check the box

http://www.showthatimage.com/vip/00223231/assp.jpg

part you select "As a Daemin", and NOT the "As a Service" (what I did by mistake** the 1st time)
If you do select the "As a Service", your system will hang after a reboot (it did for me!)

** I used to have a Windows 2003 server.

[Hans]

Thanks for your advise.
This week, i will install ASSP on my testing server too.

[edge]

The SPF Test Mode is nice :-)

[Hans]

Edge,

my testing server is a Debian Sarge server with ISPConfig installed.
I folowed the ASSP howto to the letter.
I only installed version 1.2.6 in stead of 1.2.5.

When i want to start ASSP for the forst time i have the folowwing messages:

testing:/usr/share/assp# perl assp.pl
Dec-26-06 19:29:01 Option list file './redre.txt' reloaded (redRe)
Dec-26-06 19:29:01 Option list file './nodelay.txt' reloaded (noDelay)
Dec-26-06 19:29:01 ASSP version 1.2.6() (Perl 5.008004) initializing
Dec-26-06 19:29:01 File::Scan::ClamAV module not installed
Dec-26-06 19:29:01 ASSP running on server: testing.mydomain.tld
Dec-26-06 19:29:01 Net::LDAP module not installed
Dec-26-06 19:29:01 Net:: DNS module version 0.59 installed and available
Dec-26-06 19:29:01 Email::Valid module version 0.179 installed and available
Dec-26-06 19:29:01 Mail::SPF::Query module version 1.999001 installed and available
Dec-26-06 19:29:01 Mail::SRS module version 0.31 installed - Sender Rewriting Scheme available
Dec-26-06 19:29:01 Compress::Zlib module version 2.001 installed - HTTP compression available
Dec-26-06 19:29:01 Digest::MD5 module version 2.36 installed - delaying will use MD5 keys for hashes
Dec-26-06 19:29:01 File::ReadBackwards module version 1.04 installed - searching of log files enabled
Dec-26-06 19:29:01 Time::HiRes module version 1.9703 installed - CPU usage statistics available
Dec-26-06 19:29:01 PerlIO::scalar module version 0.02 installed - chroot savy
Dec-26-06 19:29:01 Sys::Syslog module version 0.18 installed - Unix centralized logging enabled
Dec-26-06 19:29:01 Listening for mail connections at 125 and admin connections at 55555
Dec-26-06 19:29:01 Could not find gid for group 'nobody' -- not switching effective gid -- quitting
Could not find gid for group 'nobody' -- not switching effective gid -- quitting at assp.pl line 1760.

But the last two lines don't look so good.
Did you also had these errors and/or do you know a solution?

[Hans]

The user nobody does not exists on the Debian server, so i did:

/usr/sbin/groupadd nobody

And:

perl assp.pl

Which is correct (i think).
Correct me when i am wrong ;)

Now i can login at http://mydomain.tld:55555 :)

[edge]

Hans,

I did not have that problem, but on my Debian system I did have the user: nobody

ASSP does look like a nice system to use together with Postfix :-)

Did you find any "big" problems?

[Hans]

It looks good to me too, but i wait with installing it on my "non-testing" servers. I want to have some experience first with it.
No "big" problems and i have to say it looks promising.
I must not make any mistakes, because i provide a lot of emailadresses.

[Spudchat]

Please publish a write up when you have everything up and running. :D

I have tried multiple times, following the tutorial listed on this site, but every time it freezes on boot, even though I checked the Run as Daemon box. I can't even ssh in until I enter the web interface and hit the panic button!

Spamassassin just can't contend with the spam I've been getting lately. It's mainly images with hash busters at the bottom that would train my filters wrong if I were to run sa-learn --spam on the mails, and I've been getting more and more every day. :(

EDIT: It seems like the web interface is refusing to save the options that I enter, and upon restart, falls back to the default configuration. I'm using Debian Sarge setup following the Perfect Setup guide with ISPConfig installed and I'm using (trying to use) ASSP version 1.2.6.

[falko]

EDIT: It seems like the web interface is refusing to save the options that I enter, and upon restart, falls back to the default configuration. I'm using Debian Sarge setup following the Perfect Setup guide with ISPConfig installed and I'm using (trying to use) ASSP version 1.2.6.
Which options exactly? Do you have screenshots?

[Hans]

@Spudchat,


Same problem here on my Debian Sarge testing server.
I did not mention this yet, because i did not had time to test all.
(I am thinking that the settings are not saved because my testing server and pc are within the same LAN).

I still have to test if the settings will be saved, when i am outside my LAN.

@Falko,
[QUOTEWhich options exactly? Do you have screenshots?

I have no screenshots, but when i change the settings within ASSP as decibed within the howto, they are not saved indeed.

@Edge,
Did you notice this "save" problem before.
I mean, you run Debian too ...

[Spudchat]

I'm sorry, but I didn't take any screenshots. It looks exactly the same as the first time I logged in, with all the options still at the default, even after I changed and saved them.

I don't know if it makes a difference, but the machine is on my LAN, and I was using it's host name instead of my tld (http://hostname:55555), but even when I opened the port to the outside world and accessed it like that (http://mytld.org:55555) it didn't save my settings either.

[falko]

I'm sorry, but I didn't take any screenshots. It looks exactly the same as the first time I logged in, with all the options still at the default, even after I changed and saved them.

But can you make screenshots so that I know at least in which areas ISPConfig refuses to save changes?

[merlincc]

Falko,

I think there is some confusion here.

I believe the spudchat is talking about the ASSP web interface as I am also experiencing the same non-saving issue as spudchat and hans.

Someone correct me if I am wrong.

[Clogboy]

I have been running ASSP for over 2 years on a Cobalt box, it did what I needed, dramatically reduce spam.

I recently switched my new servers to ISPconfig and installed ASSP on it to front-end the postfix/spamassassin combination.

I use ASSP now only to do delaying and RBL/SPF checks of email and use spamassassin to do bayesian checks. It looks like this is the perfect setup for me.


With regards to the config not being saved, please make sure that the ownership of the assp.cfg file is correct. I'm running ASSP as user mail & group mail and had to change the ownership of the files.

[Spudchat]

merlincc, you are correct. I am referring to the settings set through the ASSP web interface.

Falko, I will take some screenshots, but I won't get around to it until the morning (I've got a hot date tonight :D).

Clogboy, so you are saying that you run ASSP as the same user and group that owns the mail process, or am I misunderstanding you? Currently, my ASSP installation runs as the user nobody.

[Clogboy]

@Spudchat:

ASSP is running as the user "mail", Postfix is running as the user "postfix" so they do run as different users.

It actually shouldn't make much of a difference if you run as nobody, mail or another user ("assp" for instance). As long as the ASSP configuration files are owned by this user ("mail" in my case, "nobody" in yours).

[falko]

merlincc, you are correct. I am referring to the settings set through the ASSP web interface.

Indeed I was thinking you were referring to the ISPConfig interface... :rolleyes:

[Spudchat]

OK, I've been messing around with it some more and haven't been able to get it to work properly, yet.

I have a sneaking suspicion it has something to do with incorrect permissions, because when I follow the howto to the letter, the images for the web interface don't load and I have to chmod the image directory to go+r for it to work. The odd part is that when I temporarily set assp.cfg to world writeable and made my changes through the web interface, the changes were still not saved and the machine hung during boot up.

I think I am on the right path now, though, and will keep you guys updated on my progress.

Spudchat

[Clogboy]

Spudchat, I have ASSP working perfectly fine here with ISPconfig. Maybe you can post your assp.cfg file here so I can see if I can spot something odd?

For security reasons don't forget to remove the "webAdminPassword" line before posting it here.

[Spudchat]

I could post it, but it appears to be exactly the same as when I first installed it. I have decided to ignore the web interface and instead configure it by hand, though it would be nice to eventually get the web interface working.

That being said, I'll post the config when I'm done messing with it (probably tommorrow) so you can take a look at it. Thanks for your help :).

[Clogboy]

Just remember that if the web interface is not working or saving the config file properly, there is something fundamentaly wrong. I would fix that before mucking around with the config files by hand as you will need the web interface in the future anyway.

Maybe you can give us a 'ls -laR' of your assp directory and the command you use to start up ASSP.

[SoftDux]

Does anyone know how to uninstall ASSP if it was installed with these instructions?