The Perfect SpamSnake - Ubuntu Jaunty Jackalope

Author: Mohammed Alli

Postfix w/Bayesian Filtering and Anti-Backscatter (Relay Recipients), Apache, Mysql, Dnsmasq, MailScanner (Spamassassin, ClamAV, Pyzor, Razor, DCC-Client), MailWatch, SPF Checks, FuzzyOcr, PDF/XLS/Phishing Sanesecurity Signatures, Postfix-GLD (Greylisting Optional), Logwatch Statistical Reporting (Optional), Outgoing Disclaimer with alterMIME (Optional), FireHOL (Iptables Firewall)

Version 2.5

This tutorial shows how to set up an Ubuntu Jaunty Jackalope based server as a spamfilter in Gateway mode. In the end, you will have a SpamSnake Gateway which will relay clean emails to your MTA. You will also be able to view your incoming queue, train your SpamSnake and carry out a few more advanced operations via MailWatch.

I cannot offer any guarantees that this will work for you, the same way it's working for me.

I will use the following software:

Web Server: Apache 2 with PHP 5
Database Server: MySQL 5.0
Mail Server: Postfix
Caching DNS Server: Dnsmasq
MailScanner: MailScanner v4.76
MailWatch: MailWatch v1.0.4

Credit goes to the guys at HowtoForge and the developers of MailScanner, MailWatch, ClamAV, Apache, Mysql and Postfix.

Install the base system using the minimal option.

1. Get root Privileges

Enable the root login by running the following and giving root a password. You can then directly log in as root:

sudo passwd root

2. Install vim-nox (Optional)

I'll use vi as my text editor in this tutorial. The default vi program has some strange behaviour on Ubuntu and Debian; to fix this, we install vim-nox:

aptitude install vim-nox

(You don't have to do this if you use a different text editor such as joe or nano.)

3. Configure The Network

Because the Ubuntu installer has configured our system to get its network settings via DHCP, we have to change that now because a server should have a static IP address. Edit /etc/network/interfaces and adjust it to your needs (in this example setup I will use the IP address 192.168.0.100):

vi /etc/network/interfaces

# This file describes the network interfaces available on your system
# and how to activate them. For more information, see interfaces(5).

# The loopback network interface
auto lo
iface lo inet loopback

# The primary network interface
auto eth0
iface eth0 inet static
        address 192.168.0.100
        netmask 255.255.255.0
        network 192.168.0.0
        broadcast 192.168.0.255
        gateway 192.168.0.1

Then restart your network:

/etc/init.d/networking restart

Then edit /etc/hosts. Make it look like this:

127.0.0.1       localhost.localdomain   localhost
192.168.0.100   server1.example.com     server1

# The following lines are desirable for IPv6 capable hosts
::1     localhost ip6-localhost ip6-loopback
fe00::0 ip6-localnet
ff00::0 ip6-mcastprefix
ff02::1 ip6-allnodes
ff02::2 ip6-allrouters
ff02::3 ip6-allhosts

Now run:

echo server1.example.com > /etc/hostname 
/etc/init.d/hostname.sh start

Afterwards, run:

hostname 
hostname -f

Both should show server1.example.com now.

4. Update your Linux Installation

Edit /etc/apt/sources.list. Comment out or remove the installation CD from the file and make sure that the universe and multiverse repositories are enabled. It should look like this:

#
# deb cdrom:[Ubuntu-Server 9.04 _Jaunty Jackalope_ - Release amd64 (20090421.1)]/ jaunty main restricted

#deb cdrom:[Ubuntu-Server 9.04 _Jaunty Jackalope_ - Release amd64 (20090421.1)]/ jaunty main restricted
# See http://help.ubuntu.com/community/UpgradeNotes for how to upgrade to
# newer versions of the distribution.

deb http://de.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ jaunty main restricted
deb-src http://de.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ jaunty main restricted

## Major bug fix updates produced after the final release of the
## distribution.
deb http://de.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ jaunty-updates main restricted
deb-src http://de.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ jaunty-updates main restricted

## N.B. software from this repository is ENTIRELY UNSUPPORTED by the Ubuntu
## team. Also, please note that software in universe WILL NOT receive any
## review or updates from the Ubuntu security team.
deb http://de.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ jaunty universe
deb-src http://de.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ jaunty universe
deb http://de.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ jaunty-updates universe
deb-src http://de.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ jaunty-updates universe

## N.B. software from this repository is ENTIRELY UNSUPPORTED by the Ubuntu
## team, and may not be under a free licence. Please satisfy yourself as to
## your rights to use the software. Also, please note that software in
## multiverse WILL NOT receive any review or updates from the Ubuntu
## security team.
deb http://de.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ jaunty multiverse
deb-src http://de.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ jaunty multiverse
deb http://de.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ jaunty-updates multiverse
deb-src http://de.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ jaunty-updates multiverse

## Uncomment the following two lines to add software from the 'backports'
## repository.
## N.B. software from this repository may not have been tested as
## extensively as that contained in the main release, although it includes
## newer versions of some applications which may provide useful features.
## Also, please note that software in backports WILL NOT receive any review
## or updates from the Ubuntu security team.
# deb http://de.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ jaunty-backports main restricted universe multiverse
# deb-src http://de.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ jaunty-backports main restricted universe multiverse

## Uncomment the following two lines to add software from Canonical's
## 'partner' repository.
## This software is not part of Ubuntu, but is offered by Canonical and the
## respective vendors as a service to Ubuntu users.
# deb http://archive.canonical.com/ubuntu jaunty partner
# deb-src http://archive.canonical.com/ubuntu jaunty partner

deb http://security.ubuntu.com/ubuntu jaunty-security main restricted
deb-src http://security.ubuntu.com/ubuntu jaunty-security main restricted
deb http://security.ubuntu.com/ubuntu jaunty-security universe
deb-src http://security.ubuntu.com/ubuntu jaunty-security universe
deb http://security.ubuntu.com/ubuntu jaunty-security multiverse
deb-src http://security.ubuntu.com/ubuntu jaunty-security multiverse

Then run the following to update the apt package database:

aptitude update

Run the following to install the latest updates:

aptitude safe-upgrade

If you see that a new kernel gets installed as part of the updates, you should reboot the system afterwards:

5. Change The Default Shell

/bin/sh is a symlink to /bin/dash, however we need /bin/bash, not /bin/dash. Therefore we do this:

dpkg-reconfigure dash

Install dash as /bin/sh? <-- No

6. Disable AppArmor

AppArmor is a security extension (similar to SELinux) that should provide extended security. In my opinion you don't need it to configure a secure system, and it usually causes more problems than advantages (think of it after you have done a week of trouble-shooting because some service wasn't working as expected, and then you find out that everything was ok, only AppArmor was causing the problem). Therefore I disable it (this is a must if you want to install ISPConfig later on).

We can disable it like this:

/etc/init.d/apparmor stop 
update-rc.d -f apparmor remove 
aptitude remove apparmor apparmor-utils

7. Install Some Software

Now we install a few packages that are needed later on:

aptitude install binutils cpp fetchmail flex gcc libarchive-zip-perl libc6-dev libcompress-zlib-perl libdb4.6-dev libpcre3 libpopt-dev lynx m4 make ncftp nmap openssl perl perl-modules unzip zip zlib1g-dev autoconf automake1.9 libtool bison autotools-dev g++ build-essential unrar