Common Anti-Spam and Anti-Virus Deployment Scenarios

This section describes common deployment scenarios for Brightmail and SpamAssassin. See the Sun Java System Messaging Server 6.3 Administration Guide for more information.

Using Symantec Brightmail

There are several common deployment scenarios for Symantec Brightmail:

• Processing incoming messages to the local message store (ims-ms channel)

• Processing messages going out to the Internet (tcp-local channel)

• Processing messages coming in from the Internet (tcp-local channel)

• Processing messages going to a specific domain (per-domain option)

• Processing messages going to specific users (per-user option)

• Setting up Brightmail processing as a Class-of-Service Option

If Brightmail implements both spam and virus checking, MTA message throughput can be reduced by as much 50 percent. To keep up with MTA throughput, you might need two Brightmail servers for each MTA.

Using SpamAssassin

Messaging Server supports the use of SpamAssassin, a freeware mail filter used to identify spam. SpamAssassin consists of a library written in Perl and a set of applications and utilities that can be used to integrate SpamAssassin into messaging systems.

SpamAssassin calculates a score for every message. Scores are calculated by performing a series of tests on message header and body information. Each test either succeeds or fails, and the score is adjusted accordingly. Scores are real numbers and may be positive or negative. Scores that exceed a certain threshold (typically 5.0) are considered to be spam.

SpamAssassin is highly configurable. Tests can be added or removed at any time and the scores of existing tests can be adjusted. This is all done through various configuration files. Further information on SpamAssassin can be found on the SpamAssassin Web site:

http://www.spamassassin.org

The same mechanism used for connecting to the Brightmail spam and virus scanning library can be used to connect to the SpamAssassin spamd server.

Using Symantec AntiVirus Scan Engine (SAVSE)

Messaging Server supports the use of SAVSE. SAVSE is a TCP/IP server application and communications API that provides high-performance virus scanning. It is designed to protect traffic served through, or stored on, network infrastructure devices.