Build your own Anti-Spam System!

The Piratefish Anti-Spam System


A step-by-step instructional guide on how to build your
own anti-spam mail relay using free open-source tools.


No previous Linux experience required.

Introduction

Building any solution using open source software can be very scary for even the most experienced Windows user. This guide contains detailed instructions on how to install Linux and setup an anti-spam email gateway.

If you run a dedicated mail server of any kind, and wish to take a bite out of spam, this documentation will provide you with a low-cost anti-spam solution that is as web configured and manageable as possible. This solution works well for small to medium businesses that have dedicated Internet connections and extra computers lying around.

If you don’t have a firewall, it’s strongly recommended you get one. The Piratefish anti-spam / anti-virus gateway is not designed to be any kind of firewall device, but some instructions are included on how to add a firewall into your Piratefish server.

The Piratefish guide is intended to be an anti-spam server that any system administrator can setup with little experience. If this is your first Linux experience, then this will be a good confidence builder. Little needs to be known to set this up.

The Debian Sarge OS is used for this setup because it contains all the packages needed to build a fully working system, and all the packages can be downloaded online very easily. No compiling needed. Really. You will have to download the cd-rom image file and burn it though.

Total setup time, not including downloads, is dependant on the skills of the reader. In the process of documenting this process, the system had to get re-built many times. For the knowledgeable user, setup can be less than 30 minutes.

Take a look at piratefish.org
for more information.

Comments

John C. Silvia said…
Website update just finished - site's looking better now. Download registration has been setup - turns out someone tested that piece as I was writing it!

A big thanks goes out to Bounce, Justin Rock, Suhas Ingale, Martin Lyberg, Mohammed Ali, Josh Serum and Christopher Rea for their contributions to making this thing rock!
John C. Silvia said…
Version 2.0 is coming out soon! Its still going to be running on Debian, and I've eliminated all the VI editing from the process - just some pico and lots of webmin's own text editor.

Also included in 2.0 is instructions on how to make Bayesian filtering start working and kill backscatter - big thanks to Bounce on that one. Logwatch is also integrated and configured in the install now thanks to Jeff Munz, so now it'll produce daily reports on what got in, and what was blocked.
John C. Silvia said…
The Piratefish Tuning page has been updated! This update adds four more DNS blocklists and makes the DNS blocklists more effective than before.

If you're using the Piratefish, you want to make these changes right away!

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