SPAM ASSASSIN vs PROCMAIL

metallica1973 · 02-04-2008, 04:17 PM

I would like to know what is the better of the two for filtering e-mail. SPAM ASSASSIN vs PROCMAIL?

dive · 02-04-2008, 04:25 PM

They are both totally different applications and do different tasks. For most setups you will use both together. Procmail will check mail for certain text strings and move to mail to various folders. Spamassassin checks mail to see if it is spam.

With both working together, you check the mail for spam using spamassassin from you .procmailrc file, then use procmail to put it in the spam folder or whatever you want to do with it. Mine gets sent to /dev/null (i.e. deleted).

Part of my .procmailrc:

Code:

:0fw
 | spamassassin

 :0:
 * ^X-Spam-Flag: YES
 /dev/null

metallica1973 · 02-04-2008, 04:28 PM

so is procmail and full fledged e-mail server application like sendmail or postfix?

What is the difference between:

Postfix

Sendmail

Fetchmail

Dovecot

and etc.

Can I use Dovcot to download pop3 mail, spamassassin to clean the e-mails and then also configure IMAP on it so the e-mail user can download the email? I am so confused.

dive · 02-04-2008, 05:10 PM

Procmail is not a mail server, it's mail processor. It just moves the already received mail into the folders you specify.

metallica1973 · 02-04-2008, 05:19 PM

make sense. So maybe I just use fetchmail to pull the POP3 stuff from their mail hosting company, SPAMASSASSIN to take out the junk, Procmail to sort and redirect the e-mail the right location and Dovecot for the IMAP or POP3 connector for the e-mail clients. sound good. lets go with it. thanks

P.S any how to on how to get this done! LOL

metallica1973 · 02-04-2008, 05:22 PM

Killer artwork. Great stuff.

dive · 02-04-2008, 05:35 PM

Read through the man pages is the best way to start.

man fetchmail
man procmail
man procmailrc
man spamassassin
man dovecot

If you want an easy way to install spamassassin. Type 'cpan' in a root terminal

install mail::spamassassin

It will wizz off and install it. You must have perl installed though since spamassassin is a perl mod.