SUMMARY
How to configure the MailEnable antivirus plug-in.
Configuring MailEnable to filter viruses requires both:
1. Configuration of the antivirus program to
use, and also
2. Creation of an antivirus filter in
MailEnable
For further advice on selecting or configuring specific antivirus programs, please see Article ME020144
DETAIL
Configuring the antivirus program
1. Install the selected antivirus application onto the same server that has MailEnable installed
2. Ensure that any resident or real-time protector capabilities of the antivirus application have been disabled (or all the MailEnable directories have been excluded from being protected by the software).
NOTE: Running a real time antivirus protection on
a server can cause issues and each resident antivirus protection agent can have
its own problems. If the resident/real-time monitor is enabled, the problems
range from blank messages showing up when MailEnable tries to deliver a message
with a virus, to possible corruption of mail system configuration files or
messages themselves.
As a general rule, consider the following:
- Exclude
MailEnable “Queues” and the “Config” Directories from the resident/real-time
monitoring.
- Disable the resident/real-time monitor if exclusion of
MailEnable directories is not possible within the antivirus
application.
3. Open the MailEnable Administration
program. Expand the Servers >Local host >Filters branch, select the
MailEnable Message Filter icon, then Select the MailEnable Antivirus Filter item
in the list which appears on the right side
panel.
4. Select the appropriate item from the list of
available antivirus applications.
5. Make sure that the "Enable" (or "Enable selected antivirus") is selected. It is possible to enable more than one antivirus application on the server, but this will affect the number of messages that can be scanned over a period of time.
6. Ensure that the correct program path to the command line virus scanner has been specified. Select the Options button to change this. Also ensure that the scratch directory exists. This directory is used to unpack the message as it is scanned for viruses.
7. Save changes.
8. Stop the MTA service.
9. Start the MTA service.
Make sure virus definition files are being updated. See the antivirus documentation for information on how to do this.
Some antivirus applications specifically require Administrative privileges to run. Since the MTA runs under the LocalSystem account, change this to an account with Administrative privileges. Open the Services control panel applet. For the "MailEnable Mail Transfer Agent" service, change the user account it runs under to a Windows user account that has Administrative rights (i.e. a member of the Administrators group).
The antivirus filter allows command line virus checkers to be used on emails that as they pass through the MailEnable server either for relay or for delivery to local mailboxes. The following presets are available but require a valid server license to use any of the following supported software:
It is important to disable any Real Time Virus Protection software on the server (since it will interfere with the scanning process). Please refer to the product manuals for more information on this.
Creating an antivirus filter
To enable antivirus filtering requires the creation of a filter in the MailEnable Administration program that detects when the message contains a virus and deletes the message or quarantines it, notifies sender, etc.
To create an antivirus
filter:
1. Open the MailEnable Administration Program
2. Right click on
the Messaging Manager > Filters branch and create a new
filter.
3. In the name field enter something like "Antivirus Filter"
(without the quotes).
4. Having created the filter, edit the criteria
for the filter as follows:
5. Check the criteria "Where the message
contains a virus"
6. Create the actions that are undertaken when the
virus is detected. E.g. Copy the message to the Quarantine directory or Delete
Message
MORE INFORMATION
How to configure a custom command line anti-virus scanner with MailEnable: Article ME020056
Which anti-virus solution to use with MailEnable?: Article ME020144
How to debug the anti-virus support and the Mail Transfer Agent: Article ME020121
Testing MailEnable Anti-virus: Article ME020085
Troubleshooting Integrated Filtering: Article ME020386