Installing notespam version 0.9.0 Jon Lasser$Header: /home/lasser/src/notespam/RCS/README,v 1.1 2002/06/03 22:29:40 lasser Exp $ ABOUT NOTESPAM: Notespam is a very simple script for Linux and Unix systems that can tag messages as spam, based on any of the DNS-based Realtime Blackhole Lists (RBLs) available over the Internet. Notespam works as a filter: it takes an e-mail message on STDIN, and will produce an e-mail message on STDOUT, which has an additional header (X-RBL-Check) if any of the relay servers matched one of the listed RBL services. Any modern e-mail client should be able to filter mail to a separate folder on the basis of these headers. Notespam is distributed under the GNU General Public License, version 2 or later. See the file COPYING for more details. INSTALLING NOTESPAM: To install notespam, you must (typically) be root. Notespam requires Perl 5.6 or later and the Mail::Internet Perl module, available via CPAN (Comprehensive Perl Archive Network). To install this module, run the following command as root: perl -MCPAN -e 'install("Mail::Internet");' Although notespam does not, strictly speaking, need any other software to function, it works best when it is run on mail delivered to your system. I have included a sample procmailrc file for use either as a system-wide procmailrc or as a personal .procmailrc file. (Most Linux systems come with procmail configured as the local delivery agent out-of-the box, while few if any commercial Unix flavors do so. For more on procmail, please see http://www.procmail.org/ To install notespam, you may simply run 'make install' as root from an untarred source directory. This will install the software in /usr/local. If you would like to install in a different location, simply run 'make install PREFIX=/my/target/directory'. ABOUT RBL SERVICES Several RBL services, free at the present time, are listed in the notespam.blacklist file included in the examples directory. For more information on these services, please see http://samspade.org/d/nanaefaq.html#4.6 ABOUT NOTESPAM PERFORMANCE Notespam has not been tested for performance. A modified version of the script (with the usage pieces taken out) has been running successfully on a Cobalt RaQ2 across more than a dozen domains with no discernable impact on system performance. However, based on notespam's architecture, I doubt that it would scale adequately to moderate-volume mail systems, which I define as those that receive more than several thousand messages an hour. It would probably be possible to modify the notespam script to use Sendmail's 'milter' interface, or Postfix's mail filtering system. However, as I'm not yet having performance problems on any of my systems, I have little motivation to take on this task at present. ABOUT JON LASSER Jon Lasser is a writer and technology consultant in Baltimore, Maryland. He specializes in network security and Unix / Linux system administration issues. Jon is the author of "Think Unix," an introduction to Unix and Linux systems for power users. He is available for speaking and for projects, and may be reached at . HOW TO GET A CUSTOMIZED VERSION OF NOTESPAM Notespam was originally written under contract for Barnhard Associates, a Cabin John, Maryland, based consulting firm. Custom modifications and installations of this package are available through Barnhard Associates. Barnhard Associates may be reached via e-mail at or via telephone at 301-229-8012.