How to Install Amavis-milter for Debian Sendmail: Installing and Running Amavis

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## 7. Installing and Running Amavis

Hopefully we passed the correct options to the Amavis configure script so that when we install it, the Debian file system policy won't be violated. That would be bad karma. Create a user named " amavis"

with:

    useradd amavis

From the amavis-sourcecode-directory type:

    make install

If everythiny worked, the install script should have

- copied the amavisd perl script to /usr/local/sbin
- copied the amavis-milter binary to /usr/local/sbin
- created the /var/local/amavis directory with owner amavis and mode 2700 or 0700
- created a file named /etc/amavisd.conf

Now you will need to create an alias in /etc/aliases or /etc/mail/aliases (or wherever you keep your mail aliases) for the " virusalert" email address that Amavis will try and send virus reports to. Generally, this should be the system administrator.

Don't forget to rebuild the aliases file by issuing:

    newaliases

Finally, open up the /etc/mail/sendmail.mc file for editing and insert the following two lines anywhere after the line the begins with " ## Custom configurations" (it is near the bottom):

    define(`_FFR_MILTER', `1')dnl
    INPUT_MAIL_FILTER(`milter-amavis', `S=local:/var/local/amavis/amavis-milter.sock, T=S:10m;R:10m;E:10m')dnl

After you close the /etc/mail/sendmail.mc file, start-up amavis-milter and amavisd with the following three commands:

    rm -rf /var/local/amavis/amavis-milter.sock
    nohup /usr/local/sbin/amavis-milter -p /var/local/amavis/amavis-milter.sock &
    /usr/local/sbin/amavisd

Now that Amavis is ready and running, you can fire-up your new sendmail configuration with:

    sendmailconfig

This command will recreate the /etc/mail/sendmail.cf file from the /etc/mail/sendmail.mc file and reload the sendmail daemon. An alternate approach is to delete the /etc/mail/sendmail.cf file, run " make" in the /etc/mail directory, and restart sendmail with " /etc/init.d/sendmail restart" (or whatever it is that you use).

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