ASSP Deluxe for cPanel : ASSP v1 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 ) must 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. 1.x


Time required to complete ASSP v1 installation 15~20 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 first shows you how to reset EXIM and then 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 500

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 1.x requires Perl 5.14.0 ; 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 5.14.4 in /usr/local/perls now

Perl installation will require about 10 minutes , at the end of Perl installation execute following command to install ASSP Perl modules. 

Perl module installation will require other 10 minutes, if it returns some perl module errors you may ignore them for now. Once completed execute this

Only if you have more than one /home location (e.g. /home /home2 /home3) you must enter each home location (one location per row) by editing the file /usr/local/assp/deluxe/home . For example if you have /home /home2 and /home3  your /usr/local/assp/deluxe/home file must have this

Each time you change something in this file /usr/local/assp/deluxe/home you should execute ex_localdomains.php as shown below to load new accounts and new email in ASSP. ASSP Deluxe currently accepts max 4 home locations.



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

Once completed 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 DEFAULT SETTINGS and click OFF for Delaying filter in FILTER STATUS DEFAULT SETTINGS , then press button SAVE FILTER STATUS SETTTINGS as shown below.

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 Install / Upgrade Center ,  and click "ASSP Deluxe for cPanel 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 MessageScoringUpperLimit to 45 , Bayesian filter to 41 ( do not change other 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 Bayesian and whitelist dabatase you can increased point the Bayesian score (more spam will be blocked).

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 . If your users wants send email without SSL warning should use the SMTP hostname with SSL port 465 (or any STARTTLS SMTP listen port).  The video below shows you the easy steps to enable ASSP SSL.


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 .
  • Return to ASSP WHM Interface and click SPAMBOX DEFAULT . Set SPAMBOX@ IMAP to ON and click SAVE SPAMBOX DEFAULT SETTINGS . Your ASSP spambox is installed you can return to the ASSP WHM Interface .

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

Finally it's time to open the ASSP GUI to set ASSP GUI password and some few configurations. 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 v1 ASSP WEB INTERFACE . ASSP v1 web Interface

There are various 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, 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 "BomB/Black Regular Expression" menu 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 compete the ASSP v1 setup I recommend you to take only a look to your ASSP GUI and its detailed parameters description and to apply only following change (ASSP password).
If you want change your ASSP GUI password go to "Admministration Interface" menu , go down to "Web Admin Password (webAdminPassword)" and set a new password, then click "APPLY" in your ASSP GUI. Be sure to note the new password carefully because the password will be encrypted and cannot be changed by editing the assp.cfg file. You can close the ASSP WEB INTERFACE for now.


ASSP antispam