Re: Setup instructions for Spamassassin on Ubuntu Server 24.04.4 LTS using Sendmail

Absolutely!!!  Please add it!

Also note that my documented approach is to use the prebuilt packages 
exclusively.

Another approach would be to NOT do an apt-get install on spamassassin, 
but do it on everything else, then manually download the latest SA 
package and build it.  But you would need to adjust all of the SA file 
locations in the config files for sendmail and spamass-milter, you would 
lose the autostarts, and you would lose support for Ubuntu from Canonical.

Ted

On 4/16/2026 5:38 AM, Bill Cole wrote:
> On 2026-04-16 at 03:42:39 UTC-0400 (Thu, 16 Apr 2026 00:42:39 -0700)
> Ted Mittelstaedt <[email protected]>
> is rumored to have said:
>
>> The following are the steps I used for this.   Every guide I came 
>> across to do it was wrong and useless,
>
> THANKS TED!
>
> One of my pet peeves is all of those wrong and useless "guides" for SA 
> and other open source tools. It has only been amplified by the scourge 
> of AI, both replacing real search with synthesis and using all the 
> garbage to synthesize remarkably well-polished turds.
>
> Does the ASF have your permission to add your guide to the SA wiki 
> with credit?
>
>
>> https://oneuptime.com/blog/post/2026-01-15-configure-spamassassin-ubuntu/view 
>>
>>
>> skipping over the beginning (which was all wrong) the info after the 
>> section "Custom Rules" is not that terrible.
>>
>> Note the Linux community almost always reaches for postfix because 
>> that is what they know, very few of them use sendmail and often when 
>> you see sendmail mentioned it's actually the postfix sendmail stub 
>> program not the real sendmail.
>>
>> With that out of the way:
>>
>> 1) Install Ubuntu Server and configure to ssh into it, static IP, add 
>> name to /etc/hosts, ntp time sync it, set correct timezone, hostname, 
>> forward and reverse dns records, setup backups, update, etc.
>>
>> 2)  apt-get install sendmail
>>
>> this installs version 8.18.1 of sendmail.
>>
>> (8.18.2 is the latest version of sendmail)
>>
>> 3) run the script
>>
>> sendmailconfig
>>
>> 4) test local delivery
>>
>> # /usr/sbin/sendmail tedm
>> From: tedm@localhost
>> Subject: test
>>
>> test
>> .
>>
>> cat /var/mail/tedm
>> make sure mail is there
>>
>> 5) Add the IP address on your machines interface you want your 
>> machine to receive mail on
>>
>> cd /etc/mail
>> add
>> DAEMON_OPTIONS(`Family=inet,  Name=MTA-v4, Port=smtp, 
>> Addr=86.75.30.9')dnl
>>
>> to sendmail.mc
>>
>> make
>>  /etc/init.d/sendmail reload
>>
>> 6) Test from another host make sure your getting mail
>>
>> 7) apt install spamassassin
>>  systemctl enable spamd
>>
>> cd /etc/spamassassin
>>  cp  local.cf  local.cf.installed
>>  vi local.cf
>>
>> make your configuration changes and save
>>
>>  systemctl start spamd
>>
>> 8)  cd /etc/mail
>> mkdir -p /etc/mail/spamassassin
>>
>> vi /etc/mail/spamassassin/spamassassin.m4
>>
>> Put in:
>>
>> dnl
>> dnl Process mail through spamassassin
>> dnl
>> define(`confMILTER_MACROS_ENVFROM', `i, {auth_type}, {auth_authen}, 
>> {auth_ssf}, {auth_author}, {mail_mailer}, {mail_host}, {mail_addr}, 
>> r, b, v, Z')dnl
>> define(`confMILTER_MACROS_ENVRCPT', `{auth_type}, r, v, Z')dnl
>> INPUT_MAIL_FILTER(`spamassassin', 
>> `S=local:/var/run/spamass/spamass.sock, F=, T=C:15m;S:4m;R:4m;E:10m')dnl
>>
>> 9)  add this template to the main sendmail.mc
>> cd /etc/mail
>>  cp sendmail.mc sendmail.mc.nospamassassin
>>
>>  vi sendmail.mc
>>
>> add:
>>
>> include(`/etc/mail/spamassassin/spamassassin.m4')dnl
>>
>> right before MAILER_DEFINITIONS  and save
>>
>> 10)  install spamass-milter
>>
>> service spamd stop
>>
>> apt-get install spamass-milter
>>
>> cd /etc/default
>>
>> vi spamass-milter
>>
>> uncomment and modify:
>> SOCKETOWNER="spamass-milter:spamass-milter"
>>
>> save
>>
>> systemctl enable spamass-milter
>>
>> service spamd start
>>
>>  systemctl start spamass-milter
>>
>> As of this writing all of the Ubuntu packages install correct 
>> config/default files for systemctl and so on
>>
>> The spamassassin package is version 4.0.2 for this version of Ubuntu:
>>
>> https://packages.ubuntu.com/noble/spamassassin
>>
>> The spamass-milter is version 0.4.0
>>
>> https://packages.ubuntu.com/noble/spamass-milter
>>
>> Note that the Ubuntu packager modified all of the prefixes.
>>
>> So just downloading it and compiling the latest version will put it 
>> in /usr/local/sbin instead of /usr/sbin and so on for all the other 
>> locations.
>>
>> Ted
>
>