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The annoyance factor for individual users whose email is crammed with pitches for pornography, absurd moneymaking schemes, and dubious health products is fierce. But for organizations, the cost of spam in lost productivity and burned bandwidth is astronomical. While society is grappling with a solution to the burgeoning crisis of spam proliferation, the pressure is on system administrators to find a solution to this massive problem in-house. And fast.
Sys admins can field scores of complaints and spend months testing software suites that turn out to be too aggressive, too passive, or too complicated to setup only to discover that SpamAssassin (SA), the leading open source spam-fighting tool, is free, flexible, powerful, highly-regarded, and remarkably effective. The drawback? SpamAssassin's lack of published documentation.
SpamAssassin by Alan Schwartz, is the only published resource devoted to SpamAssassin and how to integrate it effectively into your networks. This clear, concise guide clarifies the installation, configuration, and use of the SpamAssassin spam-checking system (versions 2.63 and 3.0) for Unix system administrators using the Postfix, Sendmail, Exim, or qmail mail servers, helping administrators make the right integration decision for their particular environments.
It covers concrete advice on how to: Customize SpamAssassin's rules, and even create new ones Train SpamAssassin's Bayesian classifier, a statistical engine for detecting spam, to optimize it for the sort of email that you typically receive Block specific addresses, hosts, and domains using third-party blacklists like the one maintained by Spamcop.net. Whitelist known good sources of email, so that messages from clients, coworkers, and friends aren't inadvertently lost. Configure SpamAssassin to work with newer spam-filtering methods such as Hashcash and Sender Policy Framework (SPF).
Sys admins, network administrators, and ISPs pay for spam with hours of experimentation and tedious junk email management, frayed user tempers, and their sanity. SpamAssassin, together with this essential book, give you the tools you need to take back your organization's inboxes.
"Detailed, accurate and informative--recommended for spam-filtering beginners and experts alike."
List of contents
Copyright;
Preface;
Scope of This Book;
Versions Covered in This Book;
Conventions Used in This Book;
Using Code Examples;
Comments and Questions;
Acknowledgments;
Chapter 1: Introducing SpamAssassin;
1.1 How SpamAssassin Works;
1.2 Organization of SpamAssassin;
1.3 Mailers and SpamAssassin;
1.4 The Politics of Scanning;
Chapter 2: SpamAssassin Basics;
2.1 Prerequisites;
2.2 Building SpamAssassin;
2.3 Invoking SpamAssassin with procmail;
2.4 Using spamc/spamd;
2.5 Invoking SpamAssassin in a Perl Script;
2.6 SpamAssassin and the End User;
Chapter 3: SpamAssassin Rules;
3.1 The Anatomy of a Test;
3.2 Modifying the Score of a Test;
3.3 Writing Your Own Tests;
3.4 The Built-in Tests;
3.5 Whitelists and Blacklists;
Chapter 4: SpamAssassin as a Learning System;
4.1 Autowhitelisting;
4.2 Bayesian Filtering;
Chapter 5: Integrating SpamAssassin with sendmail;
5.1 Spam-Checking at Delivery;
5.2 Spam-Checking During SMTP;
5.3 Building a Spam-Checking Gateway;
Chapter 6: Integrating SpamAssassinwith Postfix;
6.1 Postfix Architecture;
6.2 Spam-Checking During Local Delivery;
6.3 Spam-Checking All Incoming Mail;
6.4 Building a Spam-Checking Gateway;
Chapter 7: Integrating SpamAssassin with qmail;
7.1 qmail Architecture;
7.2 Spam-Checking During Local Delivery;
7.3 Spam-Checking All Incoming Mail;
7.4 Building a Spam-Checking Gateway;
Chapter 8: Integrating SpamAssassin with Exim;
8.1 Spam-Checking via procmail;
8.2 Spam-Checking All Incoming Mail;
8.3 Using Routers and Transports;
8.4 Using exiscan;
8.5 Using sa-exim;
8.6 Building a Spam-Checking Gateway;
Chapter 9: Using SpamAssassin as a Proxy;
9.1 Using Pop3proxy;
9.2 Using SAproxy Pro;
Appendix A: Resources;
A.1 General Spam Resources;
A.2 Spam-Filtering;
A.3 SpamAssassin;
A.4 Mail Transport Agents;
A.5 Related Mail Tools;
Colophon;
About the author
Alan Schwartz ist außerordentlicher Professor an der University of Illinois, Chicago, in der Abteilung Medical Education and Pediatrics. Als Mail-Administrator für eine Vielzahl von Organisationen befasst er sich täglich mit unaufgeforderter E-Mail.
Summary
SpamAssassin (SA), the leading open source spam-fighting tool, is free, flexible, powerful, highly-regarded, and remarkably effective. Until now, it was SpamAssassin lacked published documentation. This clear, concise new guide provides the expertise you need to take back your inbox.
