Newbie Needs SpamGuardian Installation Advice

[wurdzwurk]

I just purchased SpamGuardian from 4PSA. The supplied instructions only say how to install SpamGuardian. The instructions say to FIRST install an updated SpamAssassin and some other software. The instructions aren't provided for installing the "required supporting software" located here: http://www.4psa.com/software/index.php for the SpamGuardian product.

Running Fedora 2
Running Plesk 7.5.4

Specifically, how do you RPM the required software (which commands are needed)? The software in question is:

razor-agents-2.82-0.fc2.i386.rpm
pyzor-0.4.0-0.fc2.noarch.rpm
dcc-1.3.41-0.fc2.i386.rpm
safecat-1.12-4psa.i386.rpm
spamassassin-3.1.4-0.fc2.i386.rpm

It's now a live environment, so I don't want to mess up the server. Thanks for your help and advice. It's appreciated!

Here is what "I'm thinking" I am supposed to do:

1. rpm -Uvh spamassassin-3.1.4-0.fc2.i386.rpm
(Is -Uvh the best way to uninstall spamassassin and install???)

2. rpm -i razor-agents-2.82-0.fc2.i386.rpm
(All I need to do is -i the rpm, right?)

3. rpm -i pyzor-0.4.0-0.fc2.noarch.rpm
(All I need to do is -i the rpm, right?)

4. rpm -i dcc-1.3.41-0.fc2.i386.rpm
(All I need to do is -i the rpm, right?)

5. rpm -i safecat-1.12-4psa.i386.rpm
(All I need to do is -i the rpm, right?)

6. Then install SpamGuardian package, right?
tar -zxf sguardianXXX_buildXXXXXX.XX_OSPlesk8.tar.gz
sh install.sh

Thanks again for your thoughts....

 

[faris]

The 4psa support guys are great, and will help you with this better than I can.

I'm using RH9, and was unable to find any RPMs for anything other than SA and razer-agents

What you intend doing seems reasonable, but I suggest something slightly different.

Firstly using rpm -Uvh is better than using just -i since it provides verbose output, and Upgrades rather than just Installs.

Start with spamassassin and safecat, as taken from the 4psa website rather than anywhere else.

Next install spamguardian.

After you install, make sure any aliased domains (if you use 4psa totaldomains) definitely work in terms of accepting email.

Then do some tests to see how spamguardian is working. Send some a spam test message to a protected mailbox to see how it works (info the the spamguardian manual)

After you have done all this you can start thinking about installing pyzor/razor/dcc - they do not have to be installed at first. In fact you should install one at a time, test, then carry on to the next one.

I'm not really sure how the rpms for pyzor and dcc work in terms of where they put their config files - you may have to move them, or tell spamassassin where they are, or configure them to say where spamassassin is. On the other thand they might work out of the box ! The issue here is that these are in a way stand-alone applications that do not have to be used with spamassassin, hence you may need to tweak configs of spamassassin or pyroz/razor to make sure they both know what to do and how to do it. Have a read of all the pages linked to the reference in the install.txt for spamguardian for the manual install of pyzor/razor/dcc

BUT...no matter how you install or where the config files go, the 4psa guys told me to basically chown the binaries for pyzor/razor/dcc to popuser.popuser rather than leave them as whatever they might end up out of the box (e.g. root.root, which would be a bad thing!)

Another tip to keep in mind is that out of the box, the spamassassin basic config files might need tweaking to enable certain things. Crucially, your cpan packages may need updating or you may need to install some others in order to enable dns lookups, spf tests and more.

A clue as to what you might need to install or enable can be found by running

spamassassin -D -lint

this runs spamassasin in devug mode and also checks the configuration for errors. You'll see all sorts od stuff on the screen -- pipe it to a file to later examination, or use "less" or something.

You may also like to test that pyzor and razor are working -- for this you might like to create a test email and save it as a text file, headers and all. The pipe this into spamassassin

spamassassin -D < email.txt

There are also command line tests you can use for pyzor and, I think razor. Links to these are found in the manual install documentation pages mentioned above.

Another thing to look our for are firewall issues. DCC in particular needs some firewall tweaks which I've not got round to doing yet which is why I've not personally bothered to try installing DCC.

Bottom line: it is all easy when you know how, but confusing otherwise. I used a lot of trial and error and had to have a lot of help from the wonderful guys at 4psa. But you'll get there in the end!

Faris.

p.s. there's a spamassasin rulesfile that helps catch the stocks type spam that is so pupular at the moment. Out of the box, spamguardian does not install this rule though it does install a whole bunch other nice rules.

p.p.s. in your step 6, don't forget to change directory to the spamguardian directory that will be created when you tar- xvzf the spamguardian tar.gz file. the extra v here in the -xvzf is for verbose again.

 

[wurdzwurk]

I think it worked! Thanks so much for your time in responding to me. I know that took some effort. It is truly appreciated.

When I grow up, I'll try to help others too.

Later.

 

[faris]

I'm glad to be able to help! People here have helped me so much so many times, so it is nice to be of benefit to someone occasionally.

I must get round to getting dcc installed asap!

Faris.

 

[wjtech]

faris:

Very nice HowTo. Well done. Thanks.

John