- INTRODUCTION
MIMEDefang is an e-mail filter program which works with Sendmail 8.12 and later or Postfix. MIMEDefang filters all e-mail messages sent via SMTP. MIMEDefang splits multi-part MIME messages into their components and potentially deletes or modifies the various parts. It then reassembles the parts back into an e-mail message and sends it on its way.
MIMEDefang is written (mostly) in Perl, and the filter actions are expressed in Perl. This makes MIMEDefang highly flexible and configurable. As a simple example, you can delete all *.exe and *.com files, convert all Word documents to HTML, and allow other attachments through.
MIMEDefang uses the "milter" feature of Sendmail to "listen in" to SMTP connections. It runs a scan once for each message, not once for each recipient (as simpler procmail-based systems do.) Therefore, it is more CPU-friendly than procmail-based systems. In addition, because MIMEDefang can participate in the SMTP connection, you can bounce messages (something impossible to do with procmail-based systems.)
- WARNINGS
There are some caveats you should be aware of before using MIMEDefang. MIMEDefang potentially alters e-mail messages. This breaks a "gentleman's agreement" that mail transfer agents do not modify message bodies. This could cause problems, for example, with encrypted or signed messages.
Deleting attachments could cause a loss of information. Recipients must be aware of this possibility, and must be willing to explain to senders exactly why they cannot mail certain types of files. You must have the willingness of your e-mail users to commit to security, or they will complain loudly about MIMEDefang.
- PREREQUISITES
MIMEDefang has the following software requirements:
-
A UNIX-like operating system (MIMEDefang is developed and tested on Linux)
-
Perl 5.8.0 or higher
-
Required Perl modules:
Digest::SHA FindBin MailTools 1.1401 or higher MIME::tools 5.413 or higher MIME::Base64 3.03 or higher MIME::WordDecoder
These modules are available from http://www.cpan.org
-
Optional Perl modules:
Crypt::OpenSSL::Random - Needed to generate a truly random ipheader file HTML::Parser (CPAN) - Needed for append_html_boilerplate function IO::Socket::SSL - Needed for md_check_against_smtp_server SSL checks JSON and LWP::UserAgent - Needed for rspamd support Mail::SpamAssassin (https://www.spamassassin.org/) - spam detector Test::Class, Test::Most and tzdata files - Needed to run regression tests
-
Sendmail 8.12.x, 8.13.x or Postfix. Get the latest version.
- INSTALLATION
There's an excellent MIMEDefang-HOWTO contributed by Mickey Hill at http://www.mickeyhill.com/mimedefang-howto/. It explains everything in this README in much greater detail. Anyway, on with it:
- Sendmail
You must be using Sendmail 8.12.x or higher
Obtain the latest Sendmail 8.12.x or higher source release from http://www.sendmail.org. Unpack it. If you are building 8.12.x, add the following lines to devtools/Site/site.config.m4:
dnl Milter
APPENDDEF(`conf_sendmail_ENVDEF', `-DMILTER')
This enables the mail filter feature. (For 8.13.x and higher versions, Milter is enabled by default.)
Go ahead and build Sendmail following the instructions in the Sendmail documentation. Install and configure Sendmail.
You MUST run a client-queue runner, because MIMEDefang now uses deferred mode to deliver internally-generated messages. We recommend running this command as part of the Sendmail startup:
sendmail -Ac -q5m
Next, you need to make the Sendmail headers and libraries visible for compiling and linking MIMEDefang. The most reliable way to do this is to run these commands from the main Sendmail directory:
mkdir -p /usr/local/include/sendmail
cp -R include/* /usr/local/include/sendmail
cp -R sendmail/*.h /usr/local/include/sendmail
mkdir -p /usr/local/lib
cp obj.Linux.2.2.14-5.0.i686/*/*.a /usr/local/lib
NOTE: On the last "cp" command, replace "obj.Linux.2.2.14-5.0.i686" with the appropriate "obj.*" directory created by the Sendmail build script.
-
Obtain and install the necessary Perl modules. These generally build and install as follows:
perl Makefile.PL make install
If you are using any of the optional Perl modules, install them before starting to build MIMEDefang.
-
Optionally, obtain and install the "wv" library. Install the wvHtml program in your favourite bin directory (/usr/bin or /usr/local/bin).
-
Configure, build and install the MIMEDefang software:
./configure make make install
NOTE: Unlike most autoconf scripts, the default --sysconfdir for this version of ./configure is "/etc". You can change it to /usr/local/etc as follows:
./configure --sysconfdir=/usr/local/etc
Also, the actual configuration files go in the subdirectory "mail" under --sysconfdir. You can put them elsewhere (eg, /usr/local/etc/mimedefang) like this:
./configure --sysconfdir=/usr/local/etc --with-confsubdir=mimedefang
If you want them right in /usr/local/etc, you'd say:
./configure --sysconfdir=/usr/local/etc --with-confsubdir=
By default, MIMEDefang processes incoming messages in the directory /var/spool/MIMEDefang. You can change this by typing:
./configure --with-spooldir=DIRNAME
By default, MIMEDefang quarantines mail in the directory /var/spool/MD-Quarantine. You can change this by typing:
./configure --with-quarantinedir=DIR2
You should create the spool and quarantine directories with mode 700, owned by the user you run MIMEDefang as.
Summary of useful ./configure options:
--with-sendmail=PATH specify location of Sendmail binary --with-user=LOGIN use LOGIN as the MIMEDefang user --with-milterinc=PATH specify alternative location of milter includes --with-milterlib=PATH specify alternative location of milter libraries
--with-ipheader install /etc/mail/mimedefang-ip-key --with-confsubdir=DIR specify configuration subdirectory (mail) --with-spooldir=DIR specify location of spool directory (/var/spool/MIMEDefang) --with-quarantinedir=DIR specify location of quarantine directory (/var/spool/MD-Quarantine)
--enable-poll Use poll(2) instead of select(2) in multiplexor
--disable-check-perl-modules Disable compile-time checks for Perl modules --disable-embedded-perl Disable embedded Perl interpreter
--enable-debugging Add debugging messages to syslog
--disable-anti-virus Do not search for ANY anti-virus programs
--disable-antivir Do not include support for H+BEDV antivir --disable-vexira Do not include support for Central Command Vexira --disable-uvscan Do not include support for NAI uvscan --disable-sweep Do not include support for Sophos sweep --disable-trend Do not include support for Trend Filescanner/Interscan --disable-AvpLinux Do not include support for AVP AvpLinux --disable-clamav Do not include support for clamav --disable-csav Do not include support for Command Anti-Virus --disable-fsav Do not include support for F-Secure Anti-Virus --disable-fprot Do not include support for F-prot Anti-Virus --disable-fpscan Do not include support for F-prot Anti-Virus v6 --disable-sophie Do not include support for Sophie --disable-nvcc Do not include support for Nvcc
- Add the following line to your Sendmail "m4" configuration file. (You DO use the m4 configuration method, right?)
INPUT_MAIL_FILTER(mimedefang', S=unix:/var/spool/MIMEDefang/mimedefang.sock, F=T, T=S:360s;R:360s;E:15m')
(If you keep your spool directory elsewhere, use its location instead of /var/spool/MIMEDefang/mimedefang.sock)
The "T=..." equate increases the default timeouts for milter, which are way too small.
-
Ensure that mimedefang starts when Sendmail does. In whatever shell script starts sendmail at boot time, add the lines:
rm -f /var/spool/MIMEDefang/mimedefang.sock /usr/local/bin/mimedefang -p /var/spool/MIMEDefang/mimedefang.sock &
before the line which actually starts Sendmail. When you shut down Sendmail, remember to kill the mimedefang processes. A sample /etc/rc.d/init.d script for Red Hat Linux is in the redhat directory. A sample generic init script which should work on most UNIXes is in the examples directory.
There are docker images available on Docker Hub at https://hub.docker.com/u/mimedefang with MIMEDefang configured with postfix(8) or sendmail(8) MTA.
To configure your filter, you have to edit the file `/etc/mail/mimedefang-filter'. This is a Perl source file, so you have to know Perl. Go ahead and read the man pages mimedefang(8), mimedefang.pl(8) and mimedefang-filter(5). There are some sample filters in the examples directory.
On a busy mail server, it is too expensive to start a new Perl process for each incoming e-mail. MIMEDefang includes a multiplexor which manages a pool of long-lived Perl processes and reuses them for successive e-mails. Read the mimedefang-multiplexor(8) man page for details. A sample start/stop script is shown in examples/init-script; this script is generic and should work on most flavours of UNIX.