andr3w.net » intrepid

Configuring Postfix, Courier, and Courier-Maildrop for Virtual Users

Andrew — Mon, 23 Mar 2009 19:08:46 +0000

Here are some highlights for configuring Postfix to use Courier-Maildrop for local delivery.

This allows some advantages over just having postfix deliver, because you can do server-side filtering of spam and mailing list messages to de-clutter your inbox.

All these notes are based on configuring the setup on Ubuntu 8.10 (Intrepid Ibex) with Debian Lenny’s courier-maildrop

The following are snippets from my configuration files, highlighting the changes that I had to make, from an already existing mail server. If these look unfamiliar, or you need more assistance setting up the basic framework of a Postfix + Courier-IMAP mail server, start here.

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#/etc/courier/maildroprc
EXTENSION="$1"
RECIPIENT=tolower("$2")
USER="$3"
HOST="$4"
SENDER="$5"
DEFAULT="/home/vmail/$HOST/$USER/."

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#/etc/postfix/main.cf
virtual_transport = maildrop
maildrop_destination_recipient_limit = 1

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#/etc/postfix/master.cf
maildrop unix - n n - - pipe
flags=ODRhu user=vmail argv=/usr/bin/maildrop -w 90 -d ${user}@${nexthop} ${extension} ${recipient} ${user} ${nexthop}

So if you have a working mail server: make these changes, sudo /etc/init.d/postfix restart, and then get to work writing your .mailfilters!

Intrepid’s courier-maildrop and authlib

Andrew — Mon, 23 Mar 2009 18:29:27 +0000

Ubuntu 8.10’s courier-maildrop is not compiled against courier-authlib and so cannot read from many of the supported authentication schemes that authlib can support.

Fortunately, Debian Lenny’s can. So if you’re having trouble you can try and install the package from that distribution, YMMV.

To save you the effort of going out and locating it, I’ll attach a version of it here. Use it at your own risk, but it’s working for me.

courier-maildrop_0600-2_amd64

Configuring Spamassassin as a Daemon on Ubuntu Intrepid

Andrew — Fri, 20 Mar 2009 22:10:37 +0000

Here is the process I took to install Spamassassin as a daemon working with Postfix to process incoming mail.

I’ll also be trying to reduce the memory footprint while still getting acceptable performance. Mind you, this is being implemented on a low volume server, so these settings may not be applicable to a production server with lots of users.

First, let’s do some prep work

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$ sudo aptitude install spamassassin spamc
$ sudo groupadd -u 5001 spamd
$ sudo useradd -u 5001 -g spamd -s /sbin/nologin -d /var/lib/spamassassin spamd
$ sudo mkdir /var/lib/spamassassin
$ sudo chown spamd:spamd /var/lib/spamassassin

Now edit /etc/default/spamassassin and change the lines below

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# /etc/default/spamassassin
ENABLED=1
SAHOME="/var/lib/spamassassin"
OPTIONS="--create-prefs --max-children 2 --username spamd -H ${SAHOME}"

Edit /etc/spamassassin/local.cf

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ENABLED=1
rewrite_header Subject **SPAM _SCORE_**
required_score 5.0
use_bayes 1
bayes_auto_learn 1
use_dcc 0
use_pyzor 0
use_razor2 0

Now edit /etc/postfix/master.cf and change it to look like this:

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# /etc/postfix/master.cf
26 inet n - - - - smtpd
-o content_filter=spamassassin

# Add this segment to end of file
# Spamassassin processing filter
spamassassin unix - n n - - pipe
user=spamd argv=/usr/bin/spamc -e
/usr/sbin/sendmail -oi -f ${sender} ${recipient}

Now reboot some stuff

1 2	$ sudo /etc/init.d/spamassassin restart $ sudo postfix reload

Now test by sending email to yourself. If you view the full headers it should now have X-SPAM headers in it.

If you send an email with “XJS*C4JDBQADN1.NSBN3*2IDNEN*GTUBE-STANDARD-ANTI-UBE-TEST-EMAIL*C.34X” in the body of the email, it is guaranteed to be flagged as SPAM, and is a great way to test your spam filter.