Install to CentOS 6: milter manager Reference Manual

## Install to CentOS 6 Install to CentOS 6 — How to install milter manager to CentOS 6 |

## About this document

This document describes how to install milter manager to CentOS 6. See Install to CentOS 7 for CentOS 7 specific install information. See Install to CentOS 5 for CentOS 5 specific install information. See Install for general install information.

In this document, CentOS 6.4 is used. Sudo is used to run a command with root privilege. If you don't use sudo, use su instead.

## Install packages

Postfix is used as MTA because it's installed by default.

Spamass-milter, clamav-milter and milter-greylist are used as milters. Milter packages registered in EPEL are used.

Register EPEL like the following.

On 32bit environment:

    % sudo yum install -y http://ftp.jaist.ac.jp/pub/Linux/Fedora/epel/6/i386/epel-release-6-8.noarch.rpm

On 64bit environment:

    % sudo yum install -y http://ftp.jaist.ac.jp/pub/Linux/Fedora/epel/6/x86_64/epel-release-6-8.noarch.rpm

Now, you can install milters:

    % sudo yum install -y spamass-milter clamav-milter milter-greylist

And you can install RRDtool for generating graphs:

    % sudo yum install -y rrdtool

## Build and Install

milter manager can be installed by yum.

Register milter manager yum repository like the following:

    % curl -s https://packagecloud.io/install/repositories/milter-manager/repos/script.rpm.sh | sudo bash

See also: <URL:https://packagecloud.io/milter-manager/repos/install>

Now, you can install milter manager:

    % sudo yum install -y milter-manager

## Configuration

Here is a basic configuration policy.

IPv4 socket is used and connections only from localhost are accepted.

milter-greylist should be applied only if S25R condition is matched to reduce needless delivery delay. But the configuration is automatically done by milter manager. You need to do nothing for it.

It's difficult that milter manager runs on SELinux. Disable SELinux policy module for Postfix and Milter.

    % sudo semodule -d postfix
    % sudo semodule -d milter

### Configure spamass-milter

At first, you configure spamd.

spamd adds "[SPAM]" to spam mail's subject by default. If you don't like the behavior, edit /etc/mail/spamassassin/local.cf.

Before:

    rewrite_header Subject [SPAM]

After:

    # rewrite_header Subject [SPAM]

Add the following configuration to /etc/spamassassin/local.cf. This configuration is for adding headers only if spam detected.

    remove_header ham Status
    remove_header ham Level

Start spamd on startup:

    % sudo /sbin/chkconfig spamassassin on

Start spamd:

    % sudo run_init /sbin/service spamassassin start

Here are spamass-milter's configuration items:

- Change socket address.

- Disable needless body change feature.

- Reject if score is larger than or equal to 15.

Change /etc/sysconfig/spamass-milter:

Before:

    #SOCKET=/var/run/spamass.sock
    #EXTRA_FLAGS="-m -r 15"

After:

    SOCKET="inet:11120@[127.0.0.1]"
    EXTRA_FLAGS="-m -r 15"

Start spamass-milter on startup:

    % sudo /sbin/chkconfig spamass-milter on

Start spamass-milter:

    % sudo run_init /sbin/service spamass-milter start

### Configure clamav-milter

Update ClamAV virus database and start clamd.

    % sudo freshclam
    % sudo run_init /sbin/service clamd start

Edit /etc/clamav-milter.conf to change clamav-milter's socket address.

Before:

    #MilterSocketMode 0660

After:

    MilterSocketMode 0660

Start clamav-milter:

    % sudo run_init /sbin/service clamav-milter start

### Configure milter-greylist

Change /etc/mail/greylist.conf for the following configurations:

- use the leading 24bits for IP address match to avoid Greylist adverse effect for sender uses some MTA case.

- decrease retransmit check time to 10 minutes from 30 minutes (default value) to avoid Greylist adverse effect.

- increase auto whitelist period to a week from 1 day (default value) to avoid Greylist adverse effect.

- use Greylist by default.

The configuration relaxes Greylist check to avoid Greylist adverse effect. It increases received spam mails but you should give priority to avoid false positive rather than false negative. You should not consider that you blocks all spam mails by Greylist. You can blocks spam mails that isn't blocked by Greylist by other anti-spam technique such as SpamAssassin. milter manager helps constructing mail system that combines some anti-spam techniques.

Before:

    socket "/var/run/milter-greylist/milter-greylist.sock"
    # ...
    racl whitelist default

After:

    socket "/var/run/milter-greylist/milter-greylist.sock" 660
    # ...
    subnetmatch /24
    greylist 10m
    autowhite 1w
    racl greylist default

"grmilter", the effective user of milter-grylist, only can access /var/run/milter-greylist/ directory. To access the socket file in /var/run/milter-greylist/ directory by milter-manager, add permission to the directory:

    % sudo chmod +rx /var/run/milter-greylist/

Start milter-greylist on startup:

    % sudo /sbin/chkconfig milter-greylist on

Start milter-greylist:

    % sudo run_init /sbin/service milter-greylist start

### Configure milter manager

Add 'milter-manager' user to 'clam' group to access clamav-milter's socket:

    % sudo usermod -G clam -a milter-manager

Add 'milter-manager' user to 'grmilter' group to access milter-greylist's socket:

    % sudo usermod -G grmilter -a milter-manager

milter manager detects milters that installed in system. You can confirm spamass-milter, clamav-milter and milter-greylist are detected:

    % sudo /usr/sbin/milter-manager -u milter-manager --show-config

The following output shows milters are detected:

    ...
    define_milter("milter-greylist") do |milter|
      milter.connection_spec = "inet:11122@[127.0.0.1]"
      ...
      milter.enabled = true
      ...
    end
    ...
    define_milter("clamav-milter") do |milter|
      milter.connection_spec = "unix:/var/clamav/clmilter.socket"
      ...
      milter.enabled = true
      ...
    end
    ...
    define_milter("spamass-milter") do |milter|
      milter.connection_spec = "inet:11120@[127.0.0.1]"
      ...
      milter.enabled = true
      ...
    end
    ...

You should confirm that milter's name, socket path and 'enabled = true'. If the values are unexpected, you need to change /etc/milter-manager/milter-manager.conf. See Configuration for details of milter-manager.conf.

But if we can, we want to use milter manager without editing miter-manager.conf. If you report your environment to the milter manager project, the milter manager project may improve detect method.

milter manager's configuration is finished. Start to milter manager:

    % sudo /sbin/service milter-manager restart

milter-test-server is usuful to confirm milter manager was ran:

    % sudo -u milter-manager milter-test-server -s unix:/var/run/milter-manager/milter-manager.sock

Here is a sample success output:

    status: pass
    elapsed-time: 0.128 seconds

If milter manager fails to run, the following message will be shown:

    Failed to connect to unix:/var/run/milter-manager/milter-manager.sock

In this case, you can use log to solve the problem. milter manager is verbosily if --verbose option is specified. milter manager outputs logs to standard output if milter manager isn't daemon process.

You can add the following configuration to /etc/sysconfig/milter-manager to output verbose log to standard output:

    OPTION_ARGS="--verbose --no-daemon"

Restart milter manager:

    % sudo run_init /sbin/service milter-manager restart

Some logs are output if there is a problem. Running milter manager can be exitted by Ctrl+c.

OPTION_ARGS configuration in /etc/sysconfig/milter-manager should be commented out after the problem is solved to run milter manager as daemon process. And you should restart milter manager.

### Configure Postfix

First, add 'postfix' user to 'milter-manager' group to access milter manager's socket:

    % sudo usermod -G milter-manager -a postfix

Enables Postfix:

    % sudo /sbin/chkconfig --add postfix
    % sudo run_init /sbin/service postfix start

Configure Postfix for milters. Append following lines to /etc/postfix/main.cf:

    milter_protocol = 6
    milter_default_action = accept
    milter_mail_macros = {auth_author} {auth_type} {auth_authen}

For details for each lines.

milter_protocol = 6 | Use milter protocol version 6.
milter_default_action = accept | MTA receives mails when MTA cannot access milter. Although there are problems between MTA and milter, MTA can deliver mails to clients. But until you recover milter, perhaps MTA receives spam mails and virus mails. If you can recover the system quickly, you can specify 'tempfail' instead of 'accept'. Default value is 'tempfail'.
milter_mail_macros = {auth_author} {auth_type} {auth_authen} | MTA gives information related SMTP Auth to milters. milter-greylist etc. uses it.

Register milter manager to Postfix. It's important that spamass-milter, clamav-milter and milter-greylist aren't needed to be registered because they are used via milter manager.

Append following lines to /etc/postfix/main.cf:

    smtpd_milters = unix:/var/run/milter-manager/milter-manager.sock

Reload Postfix's configuration.

    % sudo /etc/init.d/postfix reload

milter manager logs to syslog. If milter manager works well, some logs can be shown in /var/log/maillog. You need to send a test mail for confirming.

## Conclusion

There are many configurations to work milter and Postfix together. They can be reduced by introducing milter manager.

Without milter manager, you need to specify sockets of spamass-milter, clamav-milter and milter-greylist to /etc/postfix/main.cf. With milter manager, you don't need to specify sockets of them, just specify a socket of milter manager. They are detected automatically. You don't need to take care some small mistakes like typo.

milter manager also detects which '/sbin/chkconfig -add' is done or not. If you disable a milter, you use the following steps:

    % sudo /sbin/service milter-greylist stop
    % sudo /sbin/chkconfig --del milter-greylist

You need to reload milter manager after you disable a milter.

    % sudo /sbin/service milter-manager reload

milter manager detects a milter is disabled and doesn't use it. You don't need to change /etc/postfix/main.cf.

You can reduce maintainance cost by introducing milter manager if you use some milters on CentOS.

milter manager also provides tools to help operation. Installing them is optional but you can reduce operation cost too. If you also install them, you will go to Install to CentOS (optional) .