Qmail with Spamassassin (bogofilter to be installed) Question

[David Relson]

On Wed, 05 Apr 2006 17:28:19 +0800
Ryan Pagquil wrote:

> Hi David,
> 
>          Can bogofilter functions exactly like spamassassin? Can I 
> use it with qmailscanner? Is there a howto that explains in details 
> installing bogofilter in a mail exchanger? I want to install it on 
> both MX so that spam will not reach the core servers. Is this 
> possible? Please help... I was confused on how will I implement it 
> using the existing spamassassin setup on the MX servers.
> 
> Thanks,
> Ryan

Ryan,

The short answers are: No.  Probably.  Yes. Yes.

No - bogofilter does not function exactly like spamassassin.  They
produce similar results, but their methods are different and the
results are different.  Bogofilter uses wordlists and bayesian
calculations to classify messages.  Spamassassin uses rules.
Bogofilter uses return codes of 0, 1, and 2 to indicate spam, ham, and
unsure results and an "X-Bogosity" header line (when used with the '-p'
option).

Probably - as I'm unfamiliar with qmailscanner this is an educated guess.

Yes - bogofilter is distributed with man pages, a FAQ, and documents on
integrating it with qmail and postfix.  The FAQ has info on using
bogofilter with spamassassin, procmail, maildrop, etc.  There should be
sufficient info in the docs to get you going.

Yes - you can use it on your MX machines and have them discard spam so
that spam doesn't reach your core servers.  One way would be to use
procmail to run bogofilter, check the return code, then discard the
spam.  As always simply discarding spam is dangerous because of
classification errors.

Likely someone else will provide additional info as there are people
who know more than I about qmailscanner and the use of multiple MX
machines.

HTH,

David