Mailscanner and amavisd-new comparison

postfix spamassassin spam amavis mailscanner

5,196

Silly me. Just found out about this page:

http://www.postfix.org/addon.html

... and I quote:

mailscanner system, works with Postfix and other MTAs. WARNING: This software uses unsupported methods to manipulate Postfix queue files directly. This will result in corruption or loss of mail. The mailscanner authors have sofar refused to discuss a proper access API or protocol.

Case solved. amavisd-new, it will be.

Thanks for everyone who have tried to answer!

Edit:

In the comments, @Spikolynn referred to http://wiki.mailscanner.info/doku.php?id=documentation:configuration:mta:postfix:politics , which explains how Postfix now implements a 'holding' queue which should prevent queue corruption.

Many improvements have happened on the Postfix side since this question was asked; so if you happen upon this Q&A as a result of a search, please be aware that the situation might not be as clear cut as it was when I came upon the problem.

5,196

pepoluan

I call myself an IT Optimizer, always looking for ways to optimally use whatever IT Infrastructure I have available. Currently, I work as a Senior DevOps Engineer with KMK Online. Previously, I've worked as: Head of DevOps & Security of HaloDoc. Head of IT of Zalora Indonesia. Here I oversaw the whole IT Department and be the Project Manager for Country IT Infra. IT Infrastructure & Service Delivery Manager of Sophie Paris. Here I oversaw the teams in charge of all production-level infrastructure, and also the team in charge of doing Tech Support / Help Desk. System Administrators Manager of PT Carrefour Indonesia, Indonesia's largest hyper-retailer. Here I oversaw the management of Windows- and Linux-based infrastructure throughout the country. IT Manager of Infrastructure at PT Panin Sekuritas Tbk, one of Indonesia's leading securities companies. Here I design, deploy, and maintain 'next-generation IT Infrastructure' (secure, highly-available, and performant). Senior instructor for the CCNA, CCNP, MCSE, and CEH certifications. If you want to communicate with me, feel free to circle me on Google+. Also, ALL original source snippets I post on the Stack Exchange Network (including, but not limited to, Stack Overflow and ServerFault) are dedicated to the public domain. Do with them as you see fit. If your jurisdiction does not honor, or does not have the concept of, public domain, then alternatively (at your discretion) you may consider my codes as being released under the CC0 License. My PGP Key Fingerprint is: 535A 7B4A 1E03 818B 415B D639 E3C3 F0C4 ABF8 B8D7

Updated on September 18, 2022

Comments

pepoluan over 1 year
I'm going to implement a mailfiltering gateway for my company. I'm going to use Postfix, with a PostgreSQL back-end.

The question would be: how to best implement the antispam measures.
- Mailscanner + SpamAssassin?
- amavisd-new + SpamAssassin?
(Note: I don't need antivirus filtering)

I've been searching for up-to-date comparison between Mailscanner and amavisd-new, but most comparisons I found are severely out of date.

Can someone provide me an up-to-date comparison or a link to such?

TIA
- Admin about 12 years
  
  But, consider this point of view: wiki.mailscanner.info/…
pepoluan over 12 years

@syneticon-dj I'd like to, but it's still under embargo (i.e., clicking on the checkmark pops up a box "You can accept your own answer tomorrow") :)
the-wabbit over 12 years

BTW, as a side note: amavisd-new is working quite well with postfix. We're using it with AV scanners enabled, although technically there hardly would ever be a need due to configurable blocking by filetype - we just block executables and whatever is currently on the "potentially harmful" list.
pepoluan over 12 years

@syneticon-dj I had dabbled with amavisd-new before, and honestly didn't find any grievances. However, someone in a mailing list mentioned Mailscanner, and that's why I asked my question. Anyways, thanks for sharing your experience :-)
kontere over 9 years

the wiki.mailscanner.info/… mentions a way you can configure mailscanner/postfix to not corrupt queues :)
pepoluan over 9 years

@Spikolynn thanks! Although the question is already 3 years old, I'm sure the information there would be helpful for others facing the same situation as I was :-) (I have changed job a couple of times, and my current employer is not using Postfix)
chicks over 9 years

MailScanner is mega-awesome, but the primary maintainer has retired and it isn't getting the focus that it once did. The complaints about postfix queue corruption are overblown.