How to enable anti-spam filtering in...

Article updated on 06 November, 2007

How to enable anti-spam filtering in AXIGEN using the milter implementation of Symantec Brightmail AntiSpam

1. Configuring the Symantec Brightmail AntiSpam product

After installing the product we will consider that the bmifilter application is set to bind on port 41001. To verify this, issue as root:

netstat -tlpn | grep bmifilter
The output should be similar to the one below:
tcp        0      0 127.0.0.1:41001               0.0.0.0:*                   LISTEN      6236/bmifilter

2. Configuring the AXIGEN Filtering Module

The aximilter configuration file /etc/opt/axigen/aximilter.conf will have to be modified and configured with the IP address and port on which bmifilter binds.
Note:
Make sure that in the aximilter configuration file the line milterSocket is commented as this will take precedence if both unix and inet sockets are defined:

# milterSocket "/var/opt/axigen/filters/milter.socket"
Next modify the milterIp and milterPort attributes to match the IP and port on which bmifilter binds. In our example this process binds on the loopback IP address 127.0.0.1 on port 41001, so the values for the two parameters will be:

milterIp "127.0.0.1"
milterPort 41001
In the communication process with the Milter Implementation and AXIGEN a timeout parameter rwTimeout (expressed in miliseconds) exists. By default this is set to 400ms. If errors such as the one bellow are encountered:

ERROR: Error reading socket or socket timed out: 127.0.0.1:1990 
ERROR: Error in milter communication protocol
You should follow the steps described here:
http://www.axigen.com/knowledgebase/Error-reading-socket-or-socket-timed-out_58.html

After saving the changes made to the configuration file, start aximilter:

/etc/init.d/aximilter start

3. Activating the filter in AXIGEN

To activate the aximilter filter at the "Server" context  click the "Filters" tab. Go to the "Active Filters" tab and click the "Add new filter" button. Set the priority of the filter according to your particular needs (for more information about the priority consult the manual). Make sure you select "Socket" as filter type and then in the list above the "aximilter" you have created earlier.
Next click the "Add" button to activate the filter and "Commit" to make the new settings take effect. To make the new changes permanent you should click Commands -> Save config.

Note that there is no need to restart Axigen for the filter to load. It will be used direcly.

Releases: Filtering Module 1.1.X, Mail Server 3.0.X
OS: Linux, Windows, FreeBSD, MAC, OpenBSD, NetBSD, Solaris
Distros: RPM based distros, RPM based distros with gcc4, Slackware, Debian, Ubuntu, Gentoo, FreeBSD 5.4, NetBSD 3.0, OpenBSD 3.8, MAC, Windows, OpenBSD 3.9, Solaris 10 x86, FreeBSD 6.1