ASSP Deluxe for cPanel installation HOW TO for ASSP v2

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 .

What is ASSP ?
The Anti-Spam SMTP Proxy (ASSP) Server is an antispam SMTP Proxy server which implements auto-whitelists, self learning Hidden-Markov-Model(*) and/or Bayesian, Greylisting, DNSBL, DNSWL, URIBL, SPF, SRS, Backscatter, Virus scanning, attachment blocking, Senderbase and multiple other filter methods. ASSP can be controlled using an ASSP Web interface (GUI).
What is ASSP Deluxe for cPanel ?
"ASSP Deluxe for cPanel" is an ASSP frontend/integration for cPanel ; it's a set of PHP scripts which allow to install, configure, run and monitor ASSP in a cPanel server. ASSP Deluxe for cPanel includes an ASSP WHM interface, spambox IMAP for each email user, email queue finder, spam outgoing notifications, clamAV unofficial signatures support, Pyzor plugin for ASSP, automatic updates, Daily blocked email report, a cPanel ASSP frontend for users, ASSP SSL SNI and ASSP MySQL or BerkeleyDB automatic setup, ASSP Perl module automatic installation and other features. (*) ASSP v2 only

Following HOW TO installs ASSP V. 1.x

Hardware requirements : You can install ASSP 1.x in any cPanel server with min. 256 MB RAM .

If you'll upgrade your server to min 2 cores and min 4 GB run you'll be able to upgrade to ASSP v2 following this HOW TO.

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

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

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).

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

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.

Now click PHP tab and enable ioncube as shown below.

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.

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.

Why all EXIM ACLs settings should be set OFF in EXIM Configuration Manager ?
Simply because we want avoid antispam redundancy while running ASSP. For example we turn OFF RBL checks in EXIM because these checks are already executed by ASSP ( ASSP checks the email before EXIM ) there is no reason to do this twice.

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

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.

Ok... WHM cPanel is configured to install ASSP. Now we can start the installation.

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

# cd /root;rm -f installer.php
# wget -O /root/installer.php http://www.grscripts.com/install/installer.deluxe
# /usr/local/cpanel/3rdparty/bin/php-cgi /root/installer.php v1=yes;rm -f /root/installer.php

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

# rm -fr /usr/local/perls/;mkdir /usr/local/perls/
# cd /usr/local/perls;wget http://www.cpan.org/src/5.0/perl-5.14.4.tar.gz
# tar -xzf perl-5.14.4.tar.gz;cd perl-5.14.4
# ./Configure -des -Dprefix=/usr/local/perls/perl-5.14.4
# make;make test;make install
# cd /usr/local/perls/;rm -f /usr/local/perls/perl-5.14.4.tar.gz
# chown -R root.root /usr/local/perls

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

# /usr/local/cpanel/3rdparty/bin/php-cgi /usr/local/assp/deluxe/install_modules.php used_perl=/usr/local/perls/perl-5.14.4/bin/perl test=no

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

# echo "/usr/local/perls/perl-5.14.4/bin/perl" > /usr/local/assp/deluxe/used_perl
# /usr/local/cpanel/3rdparty/bin/php-cgi /usr/local/assp/deluxe/ex_localdomains.php force=yes

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

home
home2
home3

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.

# /usr/local/cpanel/3rdparty/bin/php-cgi /usr/local/assp/deluxe/ex_localdomains.php force=yes

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

# crontab -e

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

10 7 * * * cd /usr/local/assp;/usr/local/perls/perl-5.14.4/bin/perl /usr/local/assp/rebuildspamdb.pl
MAILTO=""
*/59 * * * * /usr/local/cpanel/3rdparty/bin/php-cgi /usr/local/assp/deluxe/ex_localdomains.php
*/3 * * * * /usr/local/cpanel/3rdparty/bin/php-cgi /usr/local/assp/deluxe/update_email.php
*/3 * * * * /usr/local/cpanel/3rdparty/bin/php-cgi /usr/local/assp/deluxe/status.php
*/20 * * * * /usr/local/cpanel/3rdparty/bin/php-cgi /usr/local/assp/deluxe/find_abusers.php sw=29 rl=50 sc=30 dc=30 on=1
0 2 * * * /usr/local/cpanel/3rdparty/bin/php-cgi /usr/local/assp/deluxe/signatures.php
*/4 * * * * /usr/local/cpanel/3rdparty/bin/php-cgi /usr/local/assp/deluxe/spam_cronjob.php
30 1 * * * /usr/local/cpanel/3rdparty/bin/php-cgi /usr/local/assp/deluxe/clear_spambox.php
2 */6 * * * /usr/sbin/exiqgrep -o 33600 -i | /usr/bin/xargs /usr/sbin/exim -Mrm
MAILTO=root

Save cronjob list and exit.

Be sure to enter the rows MAILTO="" and MAILTO=root as shown above. Every cron executed between MAILTO="" and MAILTO=root will not receive email cron notifications (each time the cron executes).
If you do not use MAILTO your email queue could be filled with email (email cron notification) generated by the crons above very fast !
Do not use > /dev/null since it will NOT work with these scripts.

Now execute this

# /usr/local/cpanel/3rdparty/bin/php-cgi /usr/local/assp/deluxe/status.php daemon=yes

Now open cPanel WHM

Plugins

Grscripts ASSP Deluxe, and click START ASSP as shown below

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

# tail -f /usr/local/assp/maillog.txt

You should remember this important log /usr/local/assp/maillog.txt ; ASSP logs every incoming and outgoing email in this log . It's refreshed each 7 days automatically. A backup of your old ASSP logs are stored in /usr/local/assp. Each incoming and outgoing email has its own ASSP ID (e.g. id-83437-03814 ), the ASSP ID will be added in email headers too so you can identify an email blocked in ASSP log very easily. Email blocked will be collected in spambox while good email will be processed by EXIM and you will see them in EXIM log /var/log/exim_mainlog too.

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

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.

Even if the ASSP setup have to be completed (setting up ASSP SSL , SPAMBOX and other some settings) your ASSP is now already running and processing email, each incoming email is filtered and proxied to EXIM. All email will be checked using multiple spam filters and a numeric score point will be added by each filter ( scoring mode ) . If the scoring Penalty limit value ( MessageScoringUpperLimit ) will be surpassed the email will be collected as SPAM ( and tagged [ SPAM FOUND ] in ASSP log) , and you will see a 127.0.0.1 disconnection in EXIM log. If the scoring Penalty limit value will not be surpassed the email will be accepted ( and tagged [ MESSAGE OK ] in ASSP log ). Blocked email will be collected in /usr/local/assp/spam folder (and used to build the Bayesian database) and collected by the spambox spammaster email which delivers the SPAM in the imap /spambox folder of your users email (the spambox feature will be setup later in this HOW TO). Good email will be collected in /usr/local/assp/notspam folder (and used to build the Bayesian database) and proxied internally (127.0.0.1:125) to EXIM which will deliver the email in user INBOX .

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.

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.

ASSP Deluxe for cPanel frontend for your users

The SPAMBOX red icon shown below will appear later when the spambox feature will be installed some step below. The HELP section is very important because explains you and your users how works the ASSP spam and notspam email interface reporting . Also after pressing the SPAMBOX red button your users can configure the spambox .

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.

ASSP handles SSL connections by using IO::Socket::SSL Perl module . Default cipher list and SSL versions included in IO::Socket::SSL are compatible with the rest of the world and exclude broken ciphers that are clearly broken and dangerous ( IO::Socket::SSL version 2.066 considers both SSL3.0 and SSL2.0 as broken and allows TLSv1 and up). If you have users using obsolete email client with weak SSL version/cypher and they refuse to update the email client, you should consider to downgrade SSL version and allow weak SSL cypher ( not recommended! ). In this case read the FAQs for more info.

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.

spambox requirements :

ASSP SPAMBOX can work only with mail storage maildir . SPAMBOX imap collections is not possible using mdbox mail storage. If you want use SPAMBOX imap go to cPanel WHM Email Mailbox conversion and be sure all your accounts are using maildir mail storage.
note : By default your cPanel accounts should already be set to use maildir mail storage.
ASSP SPAMBOX imap cannot work if you enable IMAP email compression in cPanel WHM Email Mailserver configuration

disabled/unchecked

note :

disabled

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 .

If adding a new account is an issue for you (e.g. you have a WHM license with single account limit) you can install the spambox over any existent domain . In this case follow the spambox how to for your domain name instead of fake domain spamxyz.us . In each case do NOT to install the spambox over the server hostname because it will NOT work.
Now execute this
# echo "#spammaster@spamxyz.us: \"|/usr/local/assp/deluxe/piping_b.php\"" > /etc/valiases/spamxyz.us
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.
# /scripts/addpop spammaster@spamxyz.us -password random_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 .

note : the /spambox IMAP folder will be created after the email will receive the first SPAM email message. spambox IMAP folders are cleared automatically using the clear_spambox.php cronjob , read the FAQs section for more details.
After the spambox installation you'll see new spambox features in your ASSP WHM INTERFACE which allows you to check spamboxes (SPAM FINDER) , enable/disable spambox for your users, and set spambox IMAP default status for new accounts.

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..

root
nospam4me

You can see now the ASSP v1 ASSP 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.

note : there are various ASSP web interface parameters which are controlled by ASSP Deluxe for cPanel. All parameters controlled by ASSP Deluxe are listed in ASSP WHM INTERFACE AUTOMATION SETTINGS . If you are an experienced ASSP administrator and you want customize some of these parameters you should set OFF the parameter you want customize in AUTOMATION SETTINGS page.

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.

note : if you need to restart ASSP use always the ASSP WHM INTERFACE , do NOT restart it using the ASSP WEB INTERFACE . If you want update ASSP do NOT use the update feature in ASSP GUI , it will mess up your ASSP Deluxe for cPanel installation; If you want update ASSP simply wait an available ASSP Deluxe for cPaenel update.

Ok... ASSP v1 installation is completed and all should work correctly . All incoming email should be filtered and everything should work correctly. Now you can check the Post installation steps and FAQs page. You can learn how to STOP fully ASSP and return instantly to cPanel only , how to restart ASSP from console, and other important administrative tasks.

ASSP Deluxe for cPanel : ASSP v1 installation HOW TO