Scanning mail before hitting cpanel

[CiscoInside]

Hey all,

This is more for this forum I believe - I am looking at setting up a server that will be scanning my e-mail for spam and crap. Right now my e-mail server is located on my VPS server, so its all hosted. What I am looking to do is have all the mail get routed to the new mail scanner server first, then route to the actual mail server on the vps.

Its important that the VPS stay the mail server itself. Any thoughts? It looks okay on paper, but I am having a problem logically thinking how to do this.

Thanks

 

[hawk82]

What operating system is on the VPS? cPanel includes Spamassassin. You can tweak the settings there to detect more spam.

http://docs.cpanel.net/twiki/bin/view/AllDocumentation/CpanelDocs/SpamAssassin

If you want more advanced spam detection/blocking features, you'll have to look at 3rd party packages to provide things like RBL checking/blocking, greylisting, etc. I've heard good things about ASSP. Easy to install for cPanel. It isn't free but you get support from the vendor.

 

[CiscoInside]

We have CentOS running on the VPS right now. It might be time due for an upgrade of the image, I have to check.

ASSP looks promising and the price does not look bad at all.

Lets add a twist to this situation:

Would ASSP also filter mail if I was using the VPS as a backup MX server, but really having my MX sent to my Exchange box?

Or is mail simply just going to flow directly to my exchange box.. I know if my exchange box is down, the mail sits on my VPS until exchange is back up again to receive.

 

[hawk82]

Not sure if ASSP supports that. I scanned the FAQ and didn't see anything about that. I have used backup MX services from dyn.com. It has the ability to do spam filtering, low/medium/high risk, as well as blocking all non-user accounts. Plug in the e-mail addresses of known users you have and all other e-mail will be denied, and not be forwarded to your Exchange server when it comes back online.