[pmg-docs.git] / pmg-intro.adoc

Introduction
============

What is {pmg}?
--------------

E-mail security begins at the gateway by controlling all incoming and
outgoing e-mail messages. {pmg} addresses the full spectrum of
unwanted e-mail traffic, focusing spam and virus detection. {pmg}
provides a powerful and affordable server solution to eliminate spam,
viruses and blocking undesirable content from your e-mail system. All
products are self-installing and can be used without deep knowledge of
Linux.

image::images/Proxmox-Mailprocessing.png[]

Features
--------

Spam detection
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

{pmg} uses a wide variety of local and network tests to identify spam
mail. Here is a short list of used filtering methods:

Receiver Verification::

Many of the junk messages reaching your network are emails to
non-existent useres. Proxmox Mail Gateway detects these emails on SMTP
level, which means before they are transferred to your networks. This
reduces the traffic to be analyzed for spam and viruses up to 90% and
reduces the working load on your mail servers and scanners.

Sender policy framework (SPF)::

Sender Policy Framework (SPF) is an open standard for validating
emails and to prevent sender IP address forgery. SPF allows the
administrator of an Internet domain to specify which computers are
authorized to send emails with a given domain by creating a specific
SPF record in the Domain Name System (DNS).

DNS-based Blackhole List::

A DNS-based Blackhole List (DNSBL) is a means by which an Internet
site may publish a list of IP addresses, in a format which can be
easily queried by computer programs on the internet. The technology is
built on top of the Domain Name System. DNSBLs are used to publish
lists of addresses linked to spamming.

SMTP Whitelist::

Exclude senders from SMTP blocking. To prevent all SMTP checks
(Greylisting, Receiver Verification, SPF and RBL) and accept all
e-mails for the analysis in the filter rule system, you can add the
following to this list: Domains (Sender/Receiver), Mail address
(Sender/Receiver), Regular Expression (Sender/Receiver), IP address
(Sender), IP network (Sender)

Bayesian Filter - Automatically trained statistical filters::

Some particular words have a higher probability of occurring in spam
emails rather than in legitimate emails. By beeing trained to
recognize those words, the Bayesian checks every email and adjusts the
probabilities of it beeing a spam word or not in its database. This is
done automatically.

Black- and Whitelists::

Black- and Whitelists are an access control mechanism to accept,
block, or quarantine emails to recipients. This allows you to tune the
rule-system by applying different objects like domains, email address,
regular expression, IP Network, LDAP Group, and others.

Autolearning algorithm::

Proxmox Mail Gateway gathers statistical information about spam
emails. This information is used by an autolearning algorithm, so the
system becomes smarter over time.

Spam Uri Realtime BlockList (SURBL)::

SURBLs are used to detect spam based on message body URIs (usually web
sites). This makes them different from most other Real-time
Blocklists, because SURBLs are not used to block spam senders. SURBLs
allow you to block messages that have spam hosts which are mentioned
in message bodies.

Greylisting::

Greylisting an email from a sender your system does not recognize,
means, that it will be temporarily rejected. Since temporary failures
are built into the RFC specifications for mail delivery, a legitimate
server will try to resend the email later on. This is an effective
method because spammers do not queue and reattempt mail delivery as is
normal for a regular Mail Transport Agent.
+
Greylisting can reduce e-mail traffic up to 50%. A greylisted email
never reaches your mail server and thus your mail server will not send
useless "Non Delivery Reports" to spammers.


Virus detection
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

{pmg} integrates {clamav}, which is an open-source (GPL) antivirus
engine designed for detecting trojans, viruses, malware and other
malicious threats.

It provides a high performance mutli-threaded scanning daemon, command
line utilities for on demand file scanning, and an intelligent tool
for automatic signature updates.


Tracking and Logging
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The innovative Proxmox Message Tracking Center tracks and summarizes
all available logs. With the web-based and user friendly management
interface, the IT admins can easily overview and controll all
functions from a single screen.

The Message Tracking Center is very fast and powerful, tested on {pmg}
sites processing over a million emails per day. All different log
files from the last 7 days can be queried and the results are
summarized by an intelligent algorithm.

- Arrival of the email
- Proxmox filtering processing with results
- Internal queue to your email server
- Status of final delivery


Your benefit with {pmg}
-----------------------

* Open source software
* No vendor lock-in
* Linux kernel
* Fast installation and easy-to-use
* Web-based management interface
* REST API
* Huge active community
* Low administration costs and simple deployment


include::getting-help.adoc[]
Commit	Line	Data
410dc2c9 DM	1	Introduction
	2	============
	3
6cb534d7 DM	4	What is {pmg}?
	5	--------------
	6
	7	E-mail security begins at the gateway by controlling all incoming and
	8	outgoing e-mail messages. {pmg} addresses the full spectrum of
	9	unwanted e-mail traffic, focusing spam and virus detection. {pmg}
	10	provides a powerful and affordable server solution to eliminate spam,
	11	viruses and blocking undesirable content from your e-mail system. All
	12	products are self-installing and can be used without deep knowledge of
	13	Linux.
	14
	15	image::images/Proxmox-Mailprocessing.png[]
b8c7b823	16
fc9071c3 DM	17	Features
	18	--------
	19
	20	Spam detection
	21	~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
	22
	23	{pmg} uses a wide variety of local and network tests to identify spam
	24	mail. Here is a short list of used filtering methods:
	25
	26	Receiver Verification::
	27
	28	Many of the junk messages reaching your network are emails to
	29	non-existent useres. Proxmox Mail Gateway detects these emails on SMTP
	30	level, which means before they are transferred to your networks. This
	31	reduces the traffic to be analyzed for spam and viruses up to 90% and
	32	reduces the working load on your mail servers and scanners.
	33
	34	Sender policy framework (SPF)::
	35
	36	Sender Policy Framework (SPF) is an open standard for validating
	37	emails and to prevent sender IP address forgery. SPF allows the
	38	administrator of an Internet domain to specify which computers are
	39	authorized to send emails with a given domain by creating a specific
	40	SPF record in the Domain Name System (DNS).
	41
	42	DNS-based Blackhole List::
	43
	44	A DNS-based Blackhole List (DNSBL) is a means by which an Internet
	45	site may publish a list of IP addresses, in a format which can be
	46	easily queried by computer programs on the internet. The technology is
	47	built on top of the Domain Name System. DNSBLs are used to publish
	48	lists of addresses linked to spamming.
	49
	50	SMTP Whitelist::
	51
	52	Exclude senders from SMTP blocking. To prevent all SMTP checks
	53	(Greylisting, Receiver Verification, SPF and RBL) and accept all
	54	e-mails for the analysis in the filter rule system, you can add the
	55	following to this list: Domains (Sender/Receiver), Mail address
	56	(Sender/Receiver), Regular Expression (Sender/Receiver), IP address
	57	(Sender), IP network (Sender)
	58
	59	Bayesian Filter - Automatically trained statistical filters::
	60
	61	Some particular words have a higher probability of occurring in spam
	62	emails rather than in legitimate emails. By beeing trained to
	63	recognize those words, the Bayesian checks every email and adjusts the
	64	probabilities of it beeing a spam word or not in its database. This is
	65	done automatically.
	66
	67	Black- and Whitelists::
	68
	69	Black- and Whitelists are an access control mechanism to accept,
	70	block, or quarantine emails to recipients. This allows you to tune the
	71	rule-system by applying different objects like domains, email address,
	72	regular expression, IP Network, LDAP Group, and others.
	73
	74	Autolearning algorithm::
	75
	76	Proxmox Mail Gateway gathers statistical information about spam
	77	emails. This information is used by an autolearning algorithm, so the
	78	system becomes smarter over time.
	79
	80	Spam Uri Realtime BlockList (SURBL)::
81
82	SURBLs are used to detect spam based on message body URIs (usually web
83	sites). This makes them different from most other Real-time
84	Blocklists, because SURBLs are not used to block spam senders. SURBLs
85	allow you to block messages that have spam hosts which are mentioned
86	in message bodies.
87
88	Greylisting::
89
90	Greylisting an email from a sender your system does not recognize,
91	means, that it will be temporarily rejected. Since temporary failures
92	are built into the RFC specifications for mail delivery, a legitimate
93	server will try to resend the email later on. This is an effective
94	method because spammers do not queue and reattempt mail delivery as is
95	normal for a regular Mail Transport Agent.
96	+
97	Greylisting can reduce e-mail traffic up to 50%. A greylisted email
98	never reaches your mail server and thus your mail server will not send
99	useless "Non Delivery Reports" to spammers.
100
101
102	Virus detection
103	~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
104
105	{pmg} integrates {clamav}, which is an open-source (GPL) antivirus
106	engine designed for detecting trojans, viruses, malware and other
107	malicious threats.
108
109	It provides a high performance mutli-threaded scanning daemon, command
110	line utilities for on demand file scanning, and an intelligent tool
111	for automatic signature updates.
112
113
114	Tracking and Logging
115	~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
116
117	The innovative Proxmox Message Tracking Center tracks and summarizes
118	all available logs. With the web-based and user friendly management
119	interface, the IT admins can easily overview and controll all
120	functions from a single screen.
121
122	The Message Tracking Center is very fast and powerful, tested on {pmg}
123	sites processing over a million emails per day. All different log
124	files from the last 7 days can be queried and the results are
125	summarized by an intelligent algorithm.
126
127	- Arrival of the email
128	- Proxmox filtering processing with results
129	- Internal queue to your email server
130	- Status of final delivery
131
132
b8c7b823 DM	133	Your benefit with {pmg}
	134	-----------------------
	135
	136	* Open source software
	137	* No vendor lock-in
	138	* Linux kernel
	139	* Fast installation and easy-to-use
	140	* Web-based management interface
	141	* REST API
	142	* Huge active community
	143	* Low administration costs and simple deployment
	144
	145
	146	include::getting-help.adoc[]