One of the great advantages we Unix users have over the Windows populace is the lack of viruses written for our platform. While some may argue that this will change over time, the least we can do right now for our Windows compatriots is to help stop the flow of email-borne viruses before it hits the desktop. The beauty of the virus-scanning email server is the ability to auto-update your signatures and scanning engine, essentially providing a blanket of protection for your slow-to-update end users. Note that you still need to stress individual scanner updates to compensate for other methods of infection such as IM, web browsing and shared files.

Enter the MailScanner package, written and maintained by Julian K Field of the UK's University of Southampton. In addition to virus scanning, MailScanner offers integration with SpamAssassin for heuristic SPAM detection and filtering. MailScanner is queue-based and will scan both inbound messages (for local delivery) and outbound messages sent by your internal users. Messages awaiting scanning sit in one queue and messages scanned and ready to be delivered wait in another. MailScanner provides the mechanism for moving messages from one queue to another.

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• Software: MailScanner