Topic: Spam and AV Server only

[Ness]

Hi there people

Its been sometime since I used the server in anything other than full server-gateway mode. A customer of mine has been using his 7.1 server in this way for a long time. His business has however made a strategic decision to move to MS SBS (erk!) with Exchange Server. One weakness (IMO) of SBS is simple/free AV and spam services and I wonder therefore if I could encourage them to use SME in Server-Only mode so that email is delivered into it and then straight out again to the Exchange server, all de-spammed and AV'd.

Is this a valid application? I think it may be, but (as I'm a bit rusty now in my old age) are there guidelines as to the best practice documented someplace that I might follow (or is it so easy I could do it blindfold?).

Thank you all!

Chris

[cactus]

IIRC this can be done by defining the destination server in the e-mail panel at the server-manager, but it might be better to install something like spamtitan, which is more dedicated and geared to spam fighting and has more functionality:

http://www.spamtitan.com/

[Ness]

Thanks Cactus

Appreciate your feedback. I think SME Server has provided excellent spam and AV services to my customer so far and, with spamtitan coming in at $10+ per user (50+ users), it might be a bit much to pay (particularly if SME can do it sufficiently well for nothing).

Any further feedback is gratefully accepted.

Chris

[andy_wismer]

Hi Ness

I've 4 clients using SME this way, just as additional Spam and AV protection for Exchange.
The SME accepts Port 25 from the Router / Firewall, and forwards mail to the "Internal mail Server" under E-Mail in Server Manager.

Two of these installations are actually running on the SBS server, in VMWare Server (1.0!!!).

Two years no probs, and happy clients able to use mail. Before we put in the SME, the boss got >100 Spams a day on his personal mail, the info account had much more!!!

My 2 cents!!!

Andy Wismer

[Ness]

Hello Andy

Your two cents is worth a few hundred dollars in savings and I feel I am brimming with confidence following your posting! I think I'll go ahead now and set up the Server in "Server-Only" mode, config up the email settings and just let the server do its job! Awesome!

Thanks

Chris

[andy_wismer]

Hello Chris

Got the sme server running?

My SME-Spam settings:
Sensitivity: Own settings
Spam-Level: 3
Reject: 8 (I know this is fairly low, see below for reasons...)

I also use the Email WBL (White / Black List) Contrib.

I usually insist to import all known clients e-mail (Out of their Company Clients Adressbook / ERP or whatever) and add that to the whitelist. That makes sure that "known" clients (especially enterprise clients!) are never marked as spam.

Stats before and say 2 - 4 weeks after implementation confirms the impression clients get from their own mailboxes, with way way less spam than before...

Good luck with implementation...

Andy

[p-jones]

Chris

http://wiki.contribs.org/Email#Internal_Mail_Servers

Works like a dream and is totally robust. Am blocking upward of 500 messages a day that would otherwise be churning around inside the SBS for for 3 days. Is running in server only mode with Port 25 forwarded to this box at the border.

Suggest you add the Spam Filter Stats per the howto on this site as measure of it efficiency.

HTH
Peter

[Ness]

You guys are fantastic! Thanks!

All appears to be working and making my customer a lot happier!

Chris

[MSmith]

Don't use "server-only" mode as this disables some of the anti-spam mechanisms (at least, that's how I interpreted some of Charlie Brady's posts on this subject).  I'm using this exact configuration (SME as network router/gateway, passing filtered SMTP email to "internal mail server" SBS) in several locations and it works well, passing no virus-laden emails and doing a pretty good job of spam filtering, especially with RHSBL and DNSBL enabled.