ASSP Deluxe for cPanel : ASSP v2 installation HOW TO

Installation requirements
If you are familiar executing console commands and setting cronjobs the installation will be easy and the downtime will be limited to few EXIM/ASSP restarts. If you fail some step in the installation please send a message to this email and be sure to include your licensed ip. At the end of installation you ( or anyone who is installing ASSP for you ) should apply the post installation steps . The installation does not make modifications to your system/OS. You can, at any time, choose to fully disable ASSP instantly (returning to EXIM/cPanel way) without uninstalling ASSP.
BTW if you need to uninstall ASSP click here


Following HOW TO installs ASSP V. 2.x


Time required to complete ASSP v2 installation 45~60 minutes.  

Open cPanel WHM Service Configuration Service Manager and Disable/turn OFF SpamAssassin by unchecking SpamAssassin as shown below

disable spamassassin

Now go up in the page and be sure RecentAuthedMailIpTracker ( or the obsolete antirelayd cPanel service ) service is enabled as shown below

enable RecentAuthedMailIpTracker

Now turn OFF SMTP alternative port(s) as shown below. You can setup SMTP alternative port(s) later using the ASSP Web Interface (post installation steps).

turn off exim alternative ports

Now turn OFF cPanel Greylisting Daemon as shown below. You can enable ASSP Delaying/Greylasting later if you want.

disable greylisting

Save Settings in Service Manager

Open cPanel WHM Server Configuration Tweak Settings , click the Mail tab and uncheck (disable) SpamAssassin and boxtrapper as shown below.

turn off boxtrapper and spamassassin

Now click PHP tab and enable ioncube as shown below.

turn on ioncube

Save Settings in Tweak Settings

Open cPanel WHM Service Configuration EXIM configuration manager , click the Reset tab and select "Reset the entire EXIM configuration to the default settings provided with cPanel & WHM", select "Disable third-party and custom ACLs" and click "Reset" as shown below. 

reset EXIM to default

Now open again cPanel WHM Service Configuration EXIM configuration manager, and set OFF all EXIM Access Control Lists (ACLs) .
In few words you should set OFF almost everything except of Validate Sender and set as optional not ACL settings, more exactly Domain and Ips settings and Security settings are optional . If you are using a customized System Filter File (Filter section) you can use it . If you still have any doubts you can see the video below (created using WHM 86) which shows you how to reset EXIM and how to disable EXIM ACLs.


Open cPanel WHM  cPanel  Manage Plugins and install ClamAV as shown below

install clamAV antivirus using cpanel

Only if you have CSF firewall installed go to cPanel WHM  Plugins  ConfigServer Security & Firewall and click Firewall Configuration.

Adds ,125,25,26,587,55553,55555,2703 to TCP_IN =
Adds ,25,26,587,55553,55555,2703 to TCP_OUT =
Adds ,6277,24441 to UDP_IN =
Adds ,6277,24441 to UDP_OUT =
Set DENY_IP_LIMIT = to 2000

Save Settings in CSF firewall and restart it.



Now execute following commands to install ASSP Deluxe and ASSP WHM files

Once completed the commands above you can install Perl. ASSP 2.x requires a linux-thread-multi Perl and latest recommended Perl for ASSP v2 is 5.30.0 ; it will be installed in /usr/local/perls . You can remove this custom Perl (/usr/local/perls) if you'll decide to uninstall ASSP. Execute following commands to install Perl 5.30.0 in /usr/local/perls now

Perl installation will require about 15-20 minutes , at the end of Perl installation execute following command to install ASSP Perl modules. 

Perl module installation will require other 20-25 minutes, if it returns some perl module errors you may ignore them for now. Once completed execute this


Ok now open cPanel WHM Plugins Grscripts ASSP Deluxe, and click Update ASSP Perl Modules as shown below 

install perl modules using ASSP WHM interface

All Perl module should install without errors . Only if you have OS Almalinux 8.x and you receive a DB_File installation failure execute this 

and execute again the update of ASSP Perl modules. DB_File should install without errors.

If you have Ubuntu OS executes this and execute again the update of ASSP Perl modules. DB_File should install without errors.     Once completed Perl module installation without errors, return to console and execute the command below to edit your cronjobs

and add following rows  ( later in the FAQs section you can learn what does these cronjobs )

Save cronjob list and exit.

Now execute this

Now open cPanel WHM Plugins Grscripts ASSP Deluxe, and click START ASSP as shown below

start ASSP using ASSP WHM

ASSP should start correctly and you should be able to see its activity in ASSP log using this way

Now return to ASSP WHM INTERFACE and enable ASSP SCORING MODE as shown below

enable ASSP scoring mode

By default ASSP installation the ASSP Delaying filter starts enabled. It's recommend to set if OFF now; your user can decide to swtich it ON/OFF using their cPanel user interface.

Go to ASSP WHM INTERFACE ASSP DOMAIN CONFIG , and turn/set OFF Delaying filter for ALL your domain/users, click Submit button to save settings.

Now go to ASSP WHM INTERFACE ASSP FILTER CONFIG and press button DELAYING DEFAULT as shown below (default disabled status for new hosting accounts).

set delaying filter disabled

Now you can install the ASSP Deluxe cPanel frontend for your users. Open the ASSP WHM INTERFACE and go down to Software Updates,  and click "UPDATE FRONTEND" for "ALL themes" as shown below.

enable ASSP cPanel frontend

The ASSP Deluxe cPanel frontend for your users will be installed in /usr/local/cpanel/base/frontend/yourskin/asspdeluxe and you can view the user interface by pointing your browser https://www.domain.com:2083/frontend/yourskin/asspdeluxe/index.php or click the ASSP SPAM Filter icon in the EMAIL section.

enable ASSP cPanel frontend

ASSP Deluxe for cPanel frontend for your users

enable ASSP cPanel frontend Now open ASSP WHM interface SCORE SETTINGS and set PenaltyMessageLimit to 56 , Bayesian filter to 11 and HMM filter to 43 and save settings. These values are a good choice to start your ASSP in the first days. After some week when your ASSP will build a robust HMM, Bayesian and whitelist dabatase you can reduce some point the PenaltyMessageLimit (more spam will be blocked).

Now go to console and execute this to install Razor and DCC automatically . Once completed the step above ASSP must be setup to use SSL. ASSP SSL can be setup automatically using the ASSP SSL MENU in your ASSP WHM interface . Each time you change a setting for ASSP SSL , ASSP must be restarted . Using the ASSP MENU you can choose the SSL certificate for your hostname, enable/disable ASSP SSL for ASSP Web interface, you can enable/disable SSL/STARTTLS for all listenport , and enable/disable SSL SNI . SSL SNI permits your user to send SSL/STARTTLS email using mail.domain.com . If you have more than one hundred domains I recommend you to enable SNI only for domain which are really using it, you can do it using the SNI domain selector. The video below shows you the easy steps to enable ASSP SSL and SSL SNI for all your domain names.


Now you must setup the ASSP Deluxe for cPanel spambox plugin . By using the sendAllSpam ASSP feature, ASSP Deluxe for cPanel collects all SPAM in a spammaster email account and using a spambox cronjob delivers automatically all these spam to the email owner. Spambox plugin can be easily installed using following steps.


  • Open cPanel WHM Account function Create a new account and create a fake account spamxyz.us owned by root (not a reseller) with CGI capabilities. Set all account Options to Unlimited, and set "Enable Apache SpamAssassin™" unchecked .
  • Now execute this
  • Now execute this and replace random_password with a random password of your choice. There is no need to remember or note this password but be sure it's a strong password.
  • Open ASSP WHM Interface ASSP SPAMBOX@, enter spammaster@spamxyz.us in Spammaster email , and click ENABLE SPAMBOX .

  • Your ASSP spambox is installed you can return to the ASSP WHM Interface .

Now a database should be setup for ASSP. ASSP needs to store spam and notspam keywords and whitelist, and all this data must be processed fast. By default ASSP starts with a flat txt database which is strongly NOT recommended. By using ASSP Deluxe for cPanel you can setup in few easy steps a BerkeleyDB database ( recommended ) or a MySQL database . You can choose between one of these two solutions below,
BerkeleyDB or MySQL.

BerkeleyDB ASSP Setup

Open your console and execute following command which will install BerkeleyDB 5.3.28 in /usr/local/BerkeleyDB.5.3 and the BerkeleyDB Perl module for your ASSP Perl

Open the  ASSP WHM INTERFACE and click STOP ASSP. Once ASSP is fully stopped execute this to configure ASSP to use BerkeleyDB

Open the  ASSP WHM INTERFACE and click START ASSP. Your ASSP should start correctly and you should see a new menu in your ASSP WHM INTERFACE as shown below.

enable ASSP berkeleydb

MySQL ASSP Setup

If you prefer to use MySQL and you did NOT enable BerkeleyDB above you can setup MySQL for your ASSP using following way.

Open the WHM cPanel SQL Services MySQL/MariaDB Upgrade and check your current MySQL version. You should have at least MySQL 5.7 or MariaDB 10.x . If you have an older MySQL version you should upgrade it . If an upgrade is not possible it's better to use the BerkeleyDB database using the BerkeleyDB HOW TO above.

Ok now open your MySQL /etc/my.cnf configuration file using your preferred console editor and add following rows required by ASSP to avoid MySQL disconnections ( add them at the end of [mysqld] section )

Save the file and restart MySQL in this way

Now open the ASSP WHM INTERFACE and click MYSQL SETUP and follow simple instructions to activate MySQL.

Once MySQL has been setup return to ASSP WHM INTERFACE and you should see a new menu as shown below.

enable ASSP MySQL

Final steps

Installation is almost complete, at this point your ASSP should be running correctly with SSL, database, spambox and preconfigured with moderate antispam settings. There are few more simple steps required to run your ASSP at the best.

Open the ASSP WHM INTERFACE , go to "ASSP 2.x core settings" and choose number of SMTP workers following the instructions. 5 is default and should be good in most cases . You can increase or reduce based on your server RAM and SMTP traffic . If you receive a lot of SMTP traffic you may consider a bigger value (8-12 e.g.). A value above 15 is not recommended. If your server has less than 8 GB RAM set to 3 max 5 workers. Remember that more workers means more SMTP processing speed, so if your users are experiencing delay to send email you should try to increase number of ASSP worker one step at time. Each time you change number of workers ASSP needs to execute a restart.

set correct number of ASSP workers

Open the ASSP WHM INTERFACE , go to "ASSP 2.x core settings" and click enable PYZOR and ANTIVIRUS CHECKS . Pyzor checks will improve antispam performance while ANTIVIRUS CHECKS permits to scan also compressed email attachments. 
Pyzor requires at least Python version 2.7.5 if you have an old OS (Centos 6 e.g.) Pyzor could not work.

set correct number of ASSP workers

After enabling Pyzor and Antivirus execute this to activate immediately the new features (ASSP will be restarted to load the new feature)

Finally it's time to open the ASSP GUI to set ASSP GUI password and activate DCC and Razor plugins. Go to ASSP WHM INTERFACE and click ASSP WEB INTERFACE . Your ASSP WEB INTERFACE (GUI) should open you can login with..

You can see now the ASSP WEB INTERFACE . ASSP web Interface

No panic, there are countless settings here but it's everything preconfigured by ASSP Deluxe for cPanel installation; if needed you'll learn to use it day by day. You can find here ASSP core settings which are better you do not change ( for example SSL settings which are controlled using ASSP SSL MENU, database settings controlled using ASSP WHM interface, Score/Penalty Box settings ,  and some other core settings) and ASSP antispam settings which probably you may use often, for example the "Whitelist" menu, The "validate sender" menu, The "Perl Regular Expression Filter and Spambomb Detection" and some other. All ASSP GUI settings are saved in /usr/local/assp/assp.cfg (ASSP configuration file) . You should never edit manually this file, this file contains also crypted data , so you may risk to mess up your ASSP, always use the ASSP Web interface if you want change an ASSP setting.  A backup of your configuration file /usr/local/assp/assp.cfg is saved daily in /usr/local/assp/backup_cfg , so if after doing some change in ASSP GUI your ASSP stops to work correctly , STOP your ASSP using the ASSP WHM INTERFACE , restore a working assp.cfg file from /usr/local/assp/backup_cfg to /usr/local/assp/assp.cfg and START ASSP again . You can also backup all the folder /usr/local/assp ( for example in  /usr/local/assp_backup) and restore it in case your ASSP stops to working correctly after making a wrong setting in ASSP GUI or other issues.

Now, to complete the ASSP v2 setup I recommend you to take only a fast look to your ASSP GUI and to apply following final few steps. First of all your ASSP should appear like this below, you should see a green dot, which means all ASSP DBs are working correctly. If you see a red dot , close the ASSP GUI, STOP and START your ASSP using ASSP WHM INTERFACE , then open again the ASSP GUI .If the problem does not fix you should have failed the database installation some step above.
check ASSP STATUS

Now open the ASSP Razor Plugin menu and set DoASSP_Razor to score, then open the ASSP DCC Plugin menu and set DoASSP_DCC to score.
Now to change the default ASSP GUI password go to "General Server Setup" , go down to "Web Admin Password - Masterpassword (root) (webAdminPassword)" and set a new password. Be sure to note the new password carefully because the password will be encrypted and cannot be changed by editing the assp.cfg file.
Ok you can SAVE/APPLY ASSP settings in your ASSP GUI. You can close the ASSP WEB INTERFACE now.


ASSP antispam