Installing and configuring Spamassassin

Info: http://spamassassin.apache.org/
Docs: http://spamassassin.apache.org/full/3.4.x/doc/
Latest version: 3.4.3
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 `spamassassin` to version 3.4.3

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 of 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

Create .spamassassin/ dir

Gabriel Torres July 13, 2019 16:03

Here I had to manually create /etc/mail/spamassassin/.spamassassin/ and chown spamd:spamd otherwise I would see error messages in the log files saying that the tx-reputation file couldn't be created.