How to use mailservices in conjunction with your UW mail server

Refusing executable content

To use j-chkmail to refuse any mail containing executable content (before it hits your mail spool), enable "milter" filtering in sendmail. For systems using xhiered sendmail, the option use_milter should be set to yes. This option be enabled by default with the next xhier distribution.

For systems using non-xhiered sendmail, add these lines to your sendmail.mc file and restart sendmail 

dnl mail filtering
INPUT_MAIL_FILTER(`j-chkmail', `S=inet:2000@milterservices.uwaterloo.ca, T=C:15s;S:2m;R:2m;E:5m')
define(`confINPUT_MAIL_FILTERS', `j-chkmail')

Virus checking

To use Clam Anti-Virus to refuse any mail with attachments matching known virus signatures (before it hits your mail spool), enable "antivirus" filtering in sendmail. For systems using xhiered sendmail, the option antivirus should be set to yes. This option will be enabled by default with the next xhier distribution.

For systems using non-xhiered sendmail, add these lines to your sendmail.mc file and restart sendmail 

dnl mail filtering
INPUT_MAIL_FILTER(`antivirus', `S=inet:2002@milterservices.uwaterloo.ca, T=C:15s;S:2m;R:2m;E:5m')
define(`confINPUT_MAIL_FILTERS', `antivirus')
To enable both j-chkmail and clam-av in non-xhiered sendmail distributions, use both INPUT_MAIL_FILTER lines above and
define(`confINPUT_MAIL_FILTERS', `j-chkmail,antivirus')
Running j-chkmail before antivirus checking gets rid of many viruses with less overhead, as the former does not need to scan the contents of each attachment.

All front-end processing (executable content, anti-virus and spam blacklists) -- DOES NOT INCLUDE SPAMASSASSIN

You can arrange to have all your server's incoming mail handled by the cluster by submitting a request to IST. Incoming messages rejected for executable content, viruses or the sender being on anti-spam blacklists (as of February 13, the blacklists are njabl.org, opm.blitzed.org, dsbl.org and ordb.org) will not be seen by your server.

SpamAssassin processing

To use the cluster's SpamAssassin installation, change whatever you're currently using to invoke spamc to use the flag -d mailservices.uwaterloo.ca. This will probably be in your personal .procmailrc file or the system procmailrc file if you want to affect the whole system.

Versions 2.63 and later of the spamassassin xhier package use the mailservices cluster for SpamAssassin processing by default. See the spamassassin-usage man page in the package for more details.

If you would like to convert an entire system currently using SpamAssassin to use the cluster, please contact IST (request@ist) to make arrangements to copy all your existing user preferences and Bayesian filter data into the MySQL database. You will also need to inform your user community that SpamAssassin preferences must be updated through the web interface to take effect on their incoming mail and that they will need to use the web interface to sa-learn.


Questions? Comments? Contact IST.