HOWTO: Use ASSP with hMailServer

dennism · Post by **dennism** » 2005-12-08 19:27

How can I learn ASSP to mark the correct mails as spams? When I e.g. get a mail from the forum eksperten.dk, it’s marked as SPAM, but it couldn’t.

trenskow · Post by **trenskow** » 2006-01-03 13:38

Hi there all

Reinstalling server today, but i am having a problem with ASSP

Does anyone know whereelse i can get the win32-daemon.

When running install http://www.roth.net/perl/packages/win32-daemon.ppd in perl package manager, i get a 404 not found.

CraigHarris · Post by **CraigHarris** » 2006-01-03 18:17

Roth.net seems to no longer host the Win32 Daemon - I've been trying to get it for 2 weeks now, and the zipped alternative there is broken (unicode errors etc).

Can anyone send me the package or give me a link to another source?

TheAngryPenguin · Post by **TheAngryPenguin** » 2006-01-03 19:04

http://www.pavelec.net/adam/perl/packag ... daemon.ppd

I can offer no guarantees -- I had to piece everything together from various projects I found on Source Forge that used the Win32 Daemon's source files. And if requested by the author, I will obviously remove the package without delay.

That being written, I was able to successfully create the ASSP service using the above-linked package. Again, no guarantees; and use at your own risk, etc., etc., etc...

trenskow · Post by **trenskow** » 2006-01-03 22:17

TheAngryPenguin wrote:http://www.pavelec.net/adam/perl/packag ... daemon.ppd

I can offer no guarantees -- I had to piece everything together from various projects I found on Source Forge that used the Win32 Daemon's source files. And if requested by the author, I will obviously remove the package without delay.

That being written, I was able to successfully create the ASSP service using the above-linked package. Again, no guarantees; and use at your own risk, etc., etc., etc...

Thank you so much

Looks like its working fine here

pjcarmen · Post by **pjcarmen** » 2006-01-06 17:18

Thanks, I had the same problem trying to find the file.

You da man..er penguin!

CraigHarris · Post by **CraigHarris** » 2006-01-06 17:38

What versions of Perl will that new PPD work with? - if supported I will reinstall with Perl 5.8.7 (currently using Perl 5.6.1 just to support Win32::Daemon, installed from zip - eventually)

TheAngryPenguin · Post by **TheAngryPenguin** » 2006-01-06 17:43

Looks like it will work with 5.8.x:

Code: Select all

    <IMPLEMENTATION>
        <!-- Perl Version="5008" -->
		<OS NAME="MSWin32" />
		<ARCHITECTURE NAME="MSWin32-x86-multi-thread-5.8" />
        <CODEBASE HREF="http://www.pavelec.net/adam/perl/packages/x86/Win32/Daemon_5008.tar.gz" />
	</IMPLEMENTATION>

CraigHarris · Post by **CraigHarris** » 2006-01-06 17:49

Sweet, thanks ThAngryPenguin - I'll go ahead and fix my entire Perl install.

nlstart · Post by **nlstart** » 2006-01-17 22:09

The first step of this HOW TO doesn't work:

install http://www.roth.net/perl/packages/win32-daemon.ppd

since the domain roth.net is not active anymore...

TheAngryPenguin · Post by **TheAngryPenguin** » 2006-01-18 00:15

nlstart wrote:The first step of this HOW TO doesn't work:
install http://www.roth.net/perl/packages/win32-daemon.ppd
since the domain roth.net is not active anymore...

Wow -- did you happen to look up about seven posts?!?

nlstart · Post by **nlstart** » 2006-01-18 10:19

thanks TAP! I did not read the 2nd comment page...
but ehr... why not edit the original HOW TO so we have a 'clean' and working HOW TO document (especially handy for newbies like me)

Thanks for the hint anyway, I'll try it tonight!

TheAngryPenguin · Post by **TheAngryPenguin** » 2006-01-18 16:03

nlstart wrote:...why not edit the original HOW TO so we have a 'clean' and working HOW TO document (especially handy for newbies like me)

A few reasons: 1) I'm not sure if the original website's going to be down permanently; and 2) I am lazy.

nlstart · Post by **nlstart** » 2006-01-19 09:39

installing it through http://www.pavelec.net/adam/perl/packag ... daemon.ppd worked fine for me! Thanks! And your reasons not to post it into the original thread makes sense.

rattenfanger · Post by **rattenfanger** » 2006-01-24 02:06

I think I just succesfully set up ASSP with hMailServer! Thanks!!!

Just one question.. I'm I right that if I let testmode enabled ALL mail get send to hMailServer and hMailServer can look at the header if it is spam or not and move it to the Spam folder? I think that that is the case.. Just a question for confirmation (or not

)

Another thing for the OP: ASSP has also Blacklist functionality. So if you set it in ASSP and disable it in hMailServer all spamcontrol is at one point. You can also choose to run the blacklist in testmode and get this messages copied to a spam folder if you want. That last thing is not possible with hMailServers blacklists at the time, so i think its a nice thing

iprat · Post by **iprat** » 2006-01-24 11:46

I am using it like this.

Everyone receives all mail, and spam is automatically delivered in a SPAM named folder.

Works beautifully ! It is just detecting ASSP-Spam custom header equalling to "Yes"

rattenfanger · Post by **rattenfanger** » 2006-01-24 11:50

Yeah I think it will work very nice soon

Training is a fucked up work!!

But you have testmode on all the time? If you do that all the mail is always put in ASSP's spam folder. So if you want to rebuild the spamdatabase (because users gave feedback which is placed in the ASSP errors folders) you also have to manually clean the ASSP spam folder. I'm I right? Or Am I overlooking a other setting that let the mail through to hMailServer?

iprat · Post by **iprat** » 2006-01-24 13:06

First: I am using IMAP.

Spam folder is a folder automatically created on each user account when SPAM is received as the rule moves the message to that IMAP folder, and hMailServer detects that it does not exist and creates it automatically.

So each user has to inspect / clean that folder.

But that gives us a great control of what ASSP is doing.

The idea was to disable this behaviour (test mode) when ASSP was trained, but today ASSP is perfectly trained (it is very very unusual to have an error in our setup) and we still have ASSP in test mode.

In test mode (and in non test mode):

Spam mails are placed under ASSP>SPAM
NonSpam mails are placed under ASSP>NOSPAM

The only diference is that in non test mode spam is blocked reducing CPU processing time and internet bandwith (as it is able to quit an SMTP conversation in some cases).

During the initial training stage I would recommend the administrator to move them from one folder to the other until ASSP is working decently.

Afterwards we began to use the spam@mydomain.com nospam@mydomain.com interface to submit errors directly from users.

rattenfanger · Post by **rattenfanger** » 2006-01-24 14:30

In test mode (and in non test mode):

Spam mails are placed under ASSP>SPAM
NonSpam mails are placed under ASSP>NOSPAM

The only diference is that in non test mode spam is blocked reducing CPU processing time and internet bandwith (as it is able to quit an SMTP conversation in some cases).

I thought that first but in my second post i thought someting different

I think I leave test mode on for Bayesian spam control and disable it for the others. That because Bayesian is the least certain... I have only a few domains with about 10 mailboxes so the overhead doesn't matter..

rattenfanger · Post by **rattenfanger** » 2006-01-24 18:04

I had ASSP for one day running with Activestate Perl 5.8.7.815 without crashing. RBL was not enabled at that time. After enabling it it kept on crashing!

For using RBL with ASSP I had to install Net::DNS with the package manager (install Net::DNS). So I used an official package...

It look likes the problem is at that package or the RBL in general.
TheAngryPenguin, can you confirm you had RBL enabled?

TheAngryPenguin · Post by **TheAngryPenguin** » 2006-01-24 18:10

> TheAngryPenguin, can you confirm you had RBL enabled?

Negative. I've never tried enabling RBL in ASSP because I've been on the receiving end of being erroneously blacklisted a few times. I think that they are better used with something like SpamAssassin where they are only one of among many factors used in the analysis process.

koumdros · Post by **koumdros** » 2006-03-24 16:19

hm

i seem tohave a problem with assp
it was working ok for 4 months, thne for the apst 2-3 days i cannot acess the webinterface.. i dotn get any erro message or anything, nothing siply happens...

if it run : perl assp.pl

i get something like this:

loading config -- base='.'
Mar-24-06 16:29:59 Option list file './nodelay.txt' reloaded (noDelay)
Mar-24-06 16:30:00 Starting as a service

and then nothing.....

koumdros · Post by **koumdros** » 2006-05-18 19:17

i had all kind of problems with assp so i decided to uninstall i tand try another solution for hmailserver.

so i changed the smtp port back to 25 from 125...
deleted the assp service
and renamed the assp folder

and now hmailserver wont deliver mail to the users...

I'm also slightly ( 38,8 ..) feverish and I'm afraid my head isnt working at 100% efficiency..

anyone noticing anything i should do beyond what i already did?

koumdros · Post by **koumdros** » 2006-05-18 20:16

correction hmail;server appears not to be receiving ANY email whatsoever....the users connect to the mail server normally... and there is no mail to receive as the mailserver doesnt get any mail.

they CAN send email normally...

it gets stranger though as if i send email from an external account i never get a bounce it seems as if the email was delivered.!!!

heeeelp
my fever is rising peopel are screaming at me and my brain feels like boiled eggs.

^DooM^ · Post by **^DooM^** » 2006-05-18 21:14

Just a suggestion here..

In Advanced, IPRanges there are a few settings for allowing incoming mail from local to external and external to local accounts. Make sure they are ticked and also make sure that you have allowed all IP Ranges to connect.

0.0.0.0 -> 255.255.255.255

If its not that it could possibly be a firewall issue although if it was working sending to ASSP then I do not see why it wouldn't send to hmail.

Also in your SMTP settings make sure the SMTP Relayer field is empty, the port is set to 25 and the authentication box is not ticked..

I hope this helps.

-Jon

iprat · Post by **iprat** » 2006-05-19 11:29

If you have not changed anything in hMailserver or ASSP it is very strange that ASSP stops working.

You don't need to enable 0.0.0.0 -> 255.255.255.255 as with ASSP all external mail comes from 127.0.0.1 (I suppose you run ASSP in the same machine as hMailServer).

I would try to backup the entire ASSP directory and install version 1.2.0 from zero, and when you got it working again then configure it and finally copy spam and nospam folders to the new instal·lation.

It is very very strange that ASSP cannot even log any error, it just hangs for what you are saying.

iprat · Post by **iprat** » 2006-05-19 11:31

Make a test. Stop hMailserver and start ASSP and see if it works, if they try to access the same port bad things will happen, and maybe you have changed it accidentally on hMailserver (shoul listen SMTP on 125) or ASSP (should listen on 25).

koumdros · Post by **koumdros** » 2006-05-24 13:42

well i finnaly had to disable assp for the moment , after that even afte i changed the port it wasnt working...of course i had to change the external range.

I had waaaay too many things to do these days nad I', still a bit sick but hopefully I'll be able to set up ASSP from the start this weekend.

Btw...
at some point during all this mixup i realised that assp's web interace wasnt accesible anymore

i would try to go to localhost:55555

and nothing would happen. Just a blank page ( no error message..)

iprat · Post by **iprat** » 2006-05-24 15:57

The next time you test it please make sure you disable all antispam features in hMailServer (SPF, DNS, tarpitting, etc) as it won't work with ASSP. ASSP has all this features and much more, but needs hMailServer to have all its internal antispam tools disabled.

koumdros · Post by **koumdros** » 2006-06-01 10:21

when i was using ASSpi had all the built in options disabled ( ok...except tarpiting...).

Generally Iam not at all satisfied by ASSP.
LOTsof erroneus callings.

roughly 30% of legit email was marked as spam.... EVEN after users had whiteeflagged or categorised as "safe" (sent messages to "notspam@mydomain.com") the adress hence the mail originated a dozen times

the same with spam: around 10% of spam messages got though even if the sending adress was a repeat offender.

I think part of the problem may be that sometiems some of my domain users ( 50 or so people these days..) might have done somme errors or ignored classification of wrongly labeled as spam/ham messages, but come on no matter how incompetent they are the "coorrect" guesses by the users should be many more than the erroneous ones.

iprat · Post by **iprat** » 2006-06-01 11:51

Yes, you should disable tarpitting in hMailServer.

I'm sorry to hear that ASSP worked so badly with you.

I'm almost sure ASSP 1.2.1 with delaying enabled would do the job for you, because bayesian spam tests are now less important in classifying emails.

Anyway with pure bayesian analisys I have much better results that what you are commenting. Probably there's some misconfiguration in your installation as this is not behaving as usual.

^DooM^ · Post by **^DooM^** » 2006-06-01 12:34

I have just started to test this out on my personal mailserver. Its still in testmode atm and has no rules. Aside the 'tarpitting' option that I had left on

its working fine relaying and adding headers at the moment.

I will let you know how I get on with this after I have added some rules.

Cheers for the tutorial

iprat · Post by **iprat** » 2006-06-01 12:52

Hi Doom.

Anyway you should disable tarpitting in hMailServer, because any spam attack will be seen by hMailServer from 127.0.0.1 (which is the IP of the ASSP proxy), so in any case hMailServer triggers tarpitting, it will do for any ASSP connection, from spammers or friends (or ham), so it is mandatory to disable that option.

On the other hand, it is extremely effective the delay function in ASSP, please test it on ASSP 1.2.1.

^DooM^ · Post by **^DooM^** » 2006-06-01 12:57

Hey iprat.

Yes I realised why ASSP wasn't behaving properly was because I hadn't turned off tarpitting

Doh!..

Once I had turned it off all was working well.

Once I have some more spam and legit emails to create the rules from I will enable that option.

Cheers!

nlstart · Post by **nlstart** » 2006-06-16 11:50

I have the ASSP and hMailserver sending my hosted mail through my ISP.
Each time I add a user I add an IP address in the relayed section of ASSP.

Anyway, a recently added new user sometimes get the error:
SMTP error from remote mail server after end of data:
> host mailserver.mydomain.com [XX.XX.XXX.XXX]:
> 500 Mail appears to be unsolicited -- send error reports to
> postmaster@mydomain.com

Sending from one and the same account: somtimes the mail is delivered to the mailbox, sometimes it is refused with the above message.

Any help is highly appreciated.

UPDATE:
the new account had not added the sender to the ASSP whitelist yet. The incoming mails that where bounced back were regarded as spam.
Case closed.

nlstart · Post by **nlstart** » 2006-06-29 10:25

Another question: is it possible to exclude a certain user (e.g. user.012@mydomain2.com) from ASSP and keep all users intact?

iprat · Post by **iprat** » 2006-06-29 10:46

There could be some ways:

One would be to make it spamlover.

Another would be to make it non-processing: include it's complete adress in the NO-PROCESSING RegEx. In that way all emails going through ASSP that include it's adress will pass through ASSP without having any effect.

I think the first solution is the official and correct one, but you can test both and see which one fits you best.

anandhari · Post by **anandhari** » 2006-06-29 18:29

I installed ASSP as a service on my Win2003 box. ASSP was running fine through the day but has stopped working since the restart this evening.

I get this message when I try to start it from command prompt:
C:\ASSP>perl assp.pl c:\assp
loading config -- base='c:\assp'
Jun-29-06 21:54:04 Option list file 'c:\assp/nodelay.txt' reloaded (noDelay)
Jun-29-06 21:54:04 Option list file 'c:\assp/denysmtp.txt' reloaded (denySMTPCon
nectionsFrom)
Jun-29-06 21:54:04 Starting as a service

And when I try to start it from Services MMC the ASSPSMTP service never starts.

Question: How do I remove the ASSP windows Service I installed ?

Because no matter how many times I reinstall ASSP it works the first time (manual start: perl assp.pl) but refuses to start when I try to start it as a service.

Please help.

Andy

iprat · Post by **iprat** » 2006-06-29 18:50

x anandhari:

I think you should ask this at the ASSP forum, because this is an ASSP exclusive issue and in your case I think I can't help you.

Have a look at: http://sourceforge.net/forum/?group_id=69172

Maybe someone else can have an idea

anandhari · Post by **anandhari** » 2006-06-29 20:41

Iprat, I tried that forum but couldn't find any help at all

This is what I get when I try to start assp manually

Jun-30-06 00:01:47 Warning: Bayesian spam database is small or empty: './spamdb'

Jun-30-06 00:01:47 Warning: whitelist is small or empty: './whitelist' (ignore i
f this is a new install)
Jun-30-06 00:01:47 Loading virus definitions ...
Missing right brace on \x{} in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/\xea\x↑1\xrí\x Å\x
Ç\xqi\x═.\xö╣\xz◄\x▬i\xï¼\x¬┘\xe╗\x·╬\x╦i\x◄╠\xgà\xé⌂\x%╩\x ├.\xqz\x╜├\x╜♣\x▄#\x
mm\xπ"\xa▒\x6`\x╛╠\x♫♠\x-±\xâ⌡$/ at assp.pl line 8659, <F> line 153.

I copied a fresh copy of that file and tried again, same result.

It was working fine since monday but ASSP crashed since I restarted the server this evening

Hope some one has some idea abt this problem.

Post by **martin** » 2006-06-29 21:06

What you should do, is to post your question in the forum that iprat posted a link to. This is an hMailServer forum. This topic covers the hMailServer/ASSP communication. If you have questions that are about ASSP, you should ask in the ASSP forum. Not in this hMailServer forum.

anandhari · Post by **anandhari** » 2006-06-29 21:09

I did post the question in the ASSP forum mentioned by iprat but no replies yet. Keeping my fingers crossed, as I have to have this server up and running in the next 4 hours

Anyways, thanks helping me out.

Post by **martin** » 2006-06-29 21:33

If the guys in the ASSP forum doesn't know the answer to your question, it's not likely that people in a forum for another software knows the answer.

If you desperately needs to get the server up and running, I suggest you temporarly skip using ASSP and just run 'hmailserver standalone'..

anandhari · Post by **anandhari** » 2006-06-29 21:53

Martin, will the built-in spam control of hMailserver handle all the spam mails we get? Because I had posted another issue in hMailforum titled "overrun with spam"

http://www.hmailserver.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=4845

I am a bit too cautious to run 'hmailserver standalone' as this is our corporate mail server.

Please advice.

Post by **martin** » 2006-06-30 08:43

No, hMailServer won't handle all the spam you get. hMailServer 4.2 only has very basic anti spam protection.

iprat · Post by **iprat** » 2006-06-30 10:51

I've seen in ASSP forums that you've managed to get it working again thanks to a new config file. Seems yours got corrupted somehow. Glad to read this

anandhari · Post by **anandhari** » 2006-07-03 07:06

Alas iprat, wish I could say that. My happiness was short-lived. Back to work on monday adn ASSP had managed to crash on the weekend. Guess the only solution for me now is to restart ASSP with a new configuration file every day and then configure iT

iprat · Post by **iprat** » 2006-07-03 11:07

I'm sure anandhari that you have some serious misconfiguration somewhere because your issue is really uncommon and very consistent. Have you thought in reinstalling all from scratch having a backup of you old ASSP installation and try step by step test the ASSP proxy to see where you fail again in that problem ? I would recommend installing the above mentioned package that installs ASSP 1.0.1 and Perl 5.8.1 and try upgrading afterwards to 1.1.0 and then to 1.1.2b and finally to 1.2.2.

Don't make any important changes to config without a backup copy of the entire ASSP directory and also without passing through a reboot to test that the current configuration is able to restart again.

If you manage to get to 1.2.2 and you are still having ASSP ok, then you can try to copy the SPAM and NOSPAM directories and resuse your previous training.

Just my 2 cents, not very lighting but it might work.

manuelc140 · Post by **manuelc140** » 2006-07-09 11:18

should i change smtp port on users email client like outlook to 125?

i'd already configure ASSP and Hmailserver to use port 125. i can receive mails but i cannot send emails out using outlook..sending thru squirrelmail is working..

TheAngryPenguin · Post by **TheAngryPenguin** » 2006-07-09 19:08

A long, long time ago, in the very first entry of this topic, I wrote:Network Setup
SMTP destination: 127.0.0.1:125 (Note: change hMailServer's SMTP service to listen on port 125 prior to commiting this change)
(Leave everything else at their defaults, or deselected/blank)
Listen Port: 25

I'm not sure how to make this any more clearer -- ASSP uses port 25; hMS uses port 125. The reason? ASSP is a Proxy server. No -- you should NOT change your client's configurations to use port 125, or they'll be bypassing ASSP altogether.

manuelc140 · Post by **manuelc140** » 2006-07-10 01:31

hi again.. i'd already followed your instructions.. but still i cant send email out..

anyway.. thanks for your reply

nok · Post by **nok** » 2006-08-02 17:27

I've installed Active Perl + when i run assp.pl it seems to run ok however i can't visit http://127.0.0.1:55555/ just gives me a 404 error!!

Any advice?

petter · Post by **petter** » 2006-08-05 03:42

Hi guys,

First a big thank you to TheAngryPenguin for putting this guide together. Truly very helpful.

I am running into a problem when sending emails. Receiving works fine and it worked great before adding on ASSP.

I followed the directions down to the letter making sure to do it all in the right order. Of coursed I have tried to restart everything.

When sending email out I get the following message: "Your server has unexpectedly terminated the connection. Possible causes for this include server problems, network problems, or a long period of inactivity. Account: 'mydomain.com', Server: 'mail.mydomain.com', Protocol: SMTP, Port: 25, Secure(SSL): No, Error Number: 0x800CCC0F"

When I telnet to localhost 25 I do get a prompt but ANY keystroke will exit the session and I can not do the normal ehlo and such. Also, the monitor function in ASSP shows no active connections when I telnet to it.

I have Outlook set to AUTH when sending.

Not sure what else. Any suggestions are Welcome.

TIA
~Petter

TheAngryPenguin · Post by **TheAngryPenguin** » 2006-08-05 04:13

I would speculate that something other than ASSP is listening in on port 25 (or maybe you have ASSP pointed to something other than hMS), for once you telnet to it, hMS' banner should be displayed.

petter · Post by **petter** » 2006-08-05 05:13

TheAngryPenguin wrote:I would speculate that something other than ASSP is listening in on port 25 (or maybe you have ASSP pointed to something other than hMS), for once you telnet to it, hMS' banner should be displayed.

Would I be getting the hMS banner even though ASSP is listening on 25? I must be missing something.

TheAngryPenguin · Post by **TheAngryPenguin** » 2006-08-05 06:13

Absolutely. Why? Because ASSP is a proxy.

petter · Post by **petter** » 2006-08-06 03:04

Thanks for clarifying that. Now, wonder how I troubleshoot that?!?

When I turn off ASSP and set the SMTP back to 25 I get the SMTP Welcome screen fine while telnetting to it. When I set it to 125 (Restarting the hMS service) and then turn ASSP back on it do not pass through. Any ideas?

TIA
~Petter

petter · Post by **petter** » 2006-08-06 21:50

Ok, some more information.

If I leave the ASSP service off and have the hMS SMTP port at 25 I can connect to it fine. If I change the hMS port to ANYTHING else (Tried 125, 250, 999, 1000, 65222) I can NOT connect to it. Is this making any sense to anyone? I stop and start the hMS service for each port change.

Any ideas on this one is most Welcome. Gonna have to work on this one until the cows come home.

Thanks
~Petter

petter · Post by **petter** » 2006-08-06 21:55

Ok, Yet another piece of information.

If I swap the numbers in ASSP, meaning, I change SMTP Destination to 127.0.0.1:25 and set Listen Port to 125 I can connect THROUGH ASSP to hMS on port 125.

All I know ATM is that I am VERY confused why hMS will NOT listen on ANY other port than 25. I am running hMS 4.2.2.B199.

TIA for any input.
~Petter

^DooM^ · Post by **^DooM^** » 2006-08-06 22:08

petter wrote:Ok, Yet another piece of information.

If I swap the numbers in ASSP, meaning, I change SMTP Destination to 127.0.0.1:25 and set Listen Port to 125 I can connect THROUGH ASSP to hMS on port 125.

All I know ATM is that I am VERY confused why hMS will NOT listen on ANY other port than 25. I am running hMS 4.2.2.B199.

TIA for any input.
~Petter

Did you open up the new ports to the internet in your firewall/router?