Installing and configuring Spamassassin

Info: http://spamassassin.apache.org/
Docs: http://spamassassin.apache.org/full/3.4.x/doc/
Latest version: 3.4.2
Download: http://spamassassin.apache.org/downloads.cgi

SpamAssassin is a mature, widely-deployed open source project that serves as a mail filter to identify Spam. SpamAssassin uses a variety of mechanisms including header and text analysis, Bayesian filtering, DNS blocklists, and collaborative filtering databases. SpamAssassin runs on a server, and filters spam before it reaches your mailbox.

Upgrading `spamassassain` to version 3.4.2

Here is how to update quickly:

qmailctl stop
spamdctl stop
perl -MCPAN -e shell
cpan> o conf prerequisites_policy ask
cpan> force notest install  Mail::SpamAssassin Mail::SpamAssassin::Plugin::Razor2
cpan> force install BSD::Resource
cpan> quit
sa-update

I enabled all new plugins from /etc/mail/spamassassin/v342.pre.

Then restart spamd and qmail

spamdctl start
qmailctl start

Install

perl -MCPAN -e shell
o conf commit prerequisites_policy ask
install Mail::SpamAssassin
quit

For Slackware users

REQUIRED module missing: HTML::Parser
REQUIRED module missing: Net::DNS
REQUIRED module missing: NetAddr::IP
REQUIRED module missing: BSD::Resource
optional module missing: Digest::SHA1
optional module missing: Mail::SPF
optional module missing: Razor2
optional module missing: IO::Socket::INET6
optional module missing: IO::Socket::SSL
optional module missing: Mail::DKIM
optional module missing: LWP::UserAgent
optional module missing: HTTP::Date
optional module missing: Encode::Detect
optional module missing: Geo::IP
optional module missing: IO::Socket::IP
optional module missing: Net::Patricia

These modules are missing and must be installed from CPAN. Some of them have dependencies as well...

At the end this is how I have installed everything. Reply yes if dependencies are found, install in this order and force install when needed.

perl -MCPAN -e shell
o conf prerequisites_policy ask

force notest install Socket6 IO::Socket IO::Socket::INET6 LWP MD5 CPAN::DistnameInfo Mail::DKIM

Installed prerequisites of Net::DNS:

force notest install Test::More MIME::Base64 Digest::MD5 Digest::HMAC_MD5 Net::IP

Continue installing (always from CPAN):

force notest install Net::Ping Net::DNS Time::HiRes Digest::SHA1 Getopt::Long Digest::Nilsimsa URI::Escape HTML::Parser HTTP::Date IO::Zlib Archive::Tar  Mail::SPF
force notest install Mail::SPF::Query Net::Ident IO::Socket::SSL Mail::DomainKeys Mail::DKIM LWP::UserAgent HTTP::Date Encode::Detect BSD::Resource

Now download and install (in this order) razor-agent-sdk and razor-agent (download latest version from here):

tar xjf razor-agents-sdk-2.07.tar.bz2
cd razor-agents-sdk-2.07
chown -R root.root .
perl Makefile.PL
make
make install

cd ..
tar xjf razor-agents-2.85.tar.bz2
cd razor-agents-2.85
chown -R root.root .
perl Makefile.PL
make
make install

perl -MCPAN -e shell
o conf prerequisites_policy ask

Install these modules

force notest install Storable DB_File Net::SMTP BerkeleyDB
force notest install Geo::IP IO::Socket::IP Net::Patricia

Finally, if everything is ok install spamassassin and Razor via CPAN

force notest install  Mail::SpamAssassin Mail::SpamAssassin::Plugin::Razor2

I had to skip the tests because off many errors... anyway it works.

Configuring

Create the spamd user and group:

groupadd spamd
useradd -g spamd -d /home/spamd spamd
chown -R spamd.spamd /home/spamd

You can find the config files into /etc/mail/spamassassin

> cd /etc/mail/spamassassin
> ls
init.pre  local.cf  v310.pre  v312.pre  v320.pre  v330.pre

local.cf

# Add *****SPAM***** to the Subject header of spam e-mails
# rewrite_header Subject *****SPAM*****
# put here your subnet
trusted_networks 10.0.0.
# Set the threshold at which a message is considered spam (default: 5.0)
required_score 5.0
use_bayes 1
bayes_auto_learn 1
use_txrep 1
txrep_factory Mail::SpamAssassin::SQLBasedAddrList

init.pre

# RelayCountry - add metadata for Bayes learning, marking the countries
# a message was relayed through
#
# Note: This requires the IP::Country::Fast Perl module
#
loadplugin Mail::SpamAssassin::Plugin::RelayCountry

# URIDNSBL - look up URLs found in the message against several DNS
# blocklists.
#
loadplugin Mail::SpamAssassin::Plugin::URIDNSBL

# Hashcash - perform hashcash verification.
#
loadplugin Mail::SpamAssassin::Plugin::Hashcash

# SPF - perform SPF verification.
#
loadplugin Mail::SpamAssassin::Plugin::SPF

Testing

Run this debug command. If you get no error you are ready to run the daemon.

sudo -u spamd -H spamassassin -D --lint

Check if the headers are inserted:

echo -e "From: myself@mymailserver.net\nTo:myfriend@domain.net\nSubject: test\n\n" | spamc

Received: from localhost by qmail.mymailserver.net
 with SpamAssassin (version 3.3.1);
 Tue, 30 Nov 2010 23:18:37 +0100
From: myself@mymailserver.net
To: myfriend@domain.net
Subject: test
X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.3.1 (2010-04-18) on qmail.mymailserver.net
X-Spam-Flag: YES
X-Spam-Level: *****
X-Spam-Status: Yes, score=5.4 required=5.0 tests=BAYES_99,FREEMAIL_FROM,
 MISSING_DATE,MISSING_MID,NO_RECEIVED,NO_RELAYS,TVD_SPACE_RATIO,
 T_TO_NO_BRKTS_FREEMAIL autolearn=no version=3.3.1

sa-update

sa-update updates the rules (it requires gpg 1.4). Before running spamassassin for the first time download the rules:

sa-update

Add to your crontab this line to update the rules once a day

# spamassassin update
30 3 * * * /usr/bin/sa-update --nogpg -v &

The -v option will produce an email notification to postmaster.

Running spamassassin

Download the startup script from here. You have to replace the IP of your firewall and place it in /usr/local/bin/spamdctl or /etc/rc.d/rc.spamd and make it executable. Check that the path where you daemon has been installed (/usr/local/bin/spamd or /usr/local/bin/spamd) matches the one in the run script.

#!/bin/sh

# Spamd init script for Slackware
# August, 2th 2003
# Martin Ostlund, nomicon
# Modified slightly by Troy Belding for Qmailrocks - February 23, 2004
# Modified by Roberto Puzzanghera - September 02, 2014

DAEMON=/usr/local/bin/spamd
NAME=spamd
SNAME=spamdctl
DESC="SpamAssassin Mail Filter Daemon"
PIDFILE="/var/run/$NAME.pid"
PNAME="spamd"

DOPTIONS="-x -u spamd -A 127.0.0.1,[external-IP/firewall-IP] -s /var/log/spamd.log -H /home/spamd -d --pidfile=$PIDFILE"

KILL="/bin/kill"
KILLALL="/bin/killall"
# Defaults - don''t touch, edit /etc/mail/spamassassin/local.cf
ENABLED=0
OPTIONS=""

set -e

case "$1" in
start)
echo -n "Starting $DESC: "
$DAEMON $OPTIONS $DOPTIONS

echo "$NAME."
;;
stop)
echo -n "Stopping $DESC: "
$KILL -9 `cat $PIDFILE`
/bin/rm $PIDFILE
echo "$NAME."
;;
restart|force-reload)
echo -n "Restarting $DESC: "
$0 stop
$0 start

echo "$NAME."
;;
*)
ME=/usr/local/bin/$SNAME
echo "Usage: $ME {start|stop|restart|force-reload}" >&2
exit 1
;;
esac

exit 0

Now check that spamd is running:

> spamdctl start
> ps axfu
root      1859  0.1  3.4 139360 61044 ?        Ss   19:00   0:01 /usr/bin/spamd -x -u spamd -A 127.0.0.1,[firewall-IP] -H /home/spamd -d --pidfile=/var/run/spamd.pid
spamd     1860  0.0  3.2 139360 58984 ?        S    19:00   0:00  \_ spamd child
spamd     1861  0.0  3.2 139360 58984 ?        S    19:00   0:00  \_ spamd child

Type spamd -c to learn how to use spamd. See also http://spamassassin.apache.org/full/3.4.x/doc/spamd.html

Starting spamassassin at boot time

To start spamassassin at boot time put your startup script in your rc.local:

/usr/local/bin/spamdctl start &

logrotate

Create a file /etc/logrotate.d/spamd like this (slackware) to rotate daily your spamd logs:

/var/log/spamd.log {
rotate 5
daily
missingok
notifempty
delaycompress
postrotate
   /usr/local/bin/spamdctl restart
endscript
}

Plugins

Userprefs

spamassassin

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Comments

SA scans only from external emails how to scan local emails?

munku January 12, 2018 01:49

Hi,

Spamassassin is installed correctly and is working fine for years and still is. While spamassassin scans incoming email from external sources, it does not scan emails that is being send locally, (from local to local or local to external domains). Is there a way to make it scan local emails as well? I tried modifying tcp rules to include simscan for local IP addresses but it still does not work.

thanks