Google Apps Spam Filter For Small Business Server 2003/2008

This is a basic run through of how to get it working.

Stunnel.org STunnel Binaries [PAGE] [DOWNLOAD]
GnuWin32 OpenSSL Libraries [PAGE] [DOWNLOAD]

install both with all default options (run, next, next, next, done)

quick step-by-step-ish guide
1. install windows sbs 2003/2008, sbs comes with a special pop3 connector that server standard does not have
2. setup google apps standard, you only need to make 1 account, and make that account the catch all for the domain

3. sbs 2003 pop3 connector does not understand mail over ssl, so you need to install stunnel and create an ssl tunnel to the gmail servers, then connect the connector to that tunnel
once stunnel is installed edit the file c:program filesstunnelstunnel.conf delete the contents so the file only contains the following
client=YES
service=dave-spamfilter
[dave-spamfilter]
accept = 127.0.0.1:111
connect = pop.gmail.com:995
save the file, then from the start menu install stunnel as a service, under the services management console you should see a service called dave-spamfilter or whatever name you have changed it to.
When setting up the pop3 connector, set the server it checks to 127.0.0.1 on port 111 this will force the connector to use the stunnel
3. set the connector up as global mailbox, it will pick up the mail from 1 account and redistribute the mail to their correct accounts within the active directory, if they dont exist you can assign a catch all

4. the lowest setting you can set for the check interval is 15 minutes, but you can insert a registry key that accellerates the value by an arbitrary amount, so if you tell it 3, then it will divide 15 by three and check every 5 minutes or set the reg key as 10 and change the setting to 30 so it checks every 3 minutes, depends on how often you want it to check, I found 5 minutes was fine and the users didn’t really notice.

1. Locate and then click the following registry subkey:
“HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE/SOFTWARE/Microsoft/SmallBusinessServer/Network/POP3 Connector”

2. On the “Edit” menu, point to “New”, and then click “DWORD Value”.

3. Type “ScheduleAccelerator” (without the quotation marks) as the entry name, and then press ENTER.

5. On the “Edit” menu, click “Modify”.

6. In the “Value data” box, type the value that you want, and then click “OK”. To determine the polling interval, the value that is configured on the “Scheduling” tab in the GUI is divided by the value that you type for the ScheduleAccelerator entry.

For example, if a 15 minute interval is specified in the GUI and you set the value of the ScheduleAccelerator entry to 3, the connector will poll ever five minutes.

7. Quit Registry Editor

Congratulations, you now have a perfect spam server, centrally managed from 1 spam box and all is well, you can split this up if you dont want 1 mailbox for all the spam, just make individual accounts in gmail apps and get the pop3 connector to retrieve them separately, or set the new account to forward all the mail to the catch all as well so the mail is all still retrieved by 1 connection from exchange but the spam for the individual user will be separated.

I’ll fill some more details into the process later when I have time on the weekend

OPTIONAL EXTRAS

Email not being deleted from gmail after the exchange server already has them is a gmail setting.

1. login to the account
2. click settings
3. click Forwarding and POP/IMAP
4. under Pop Download: option 2 is When messages are accessed with POP -> change to Delete %YOURDOMAIN% mail’s copy
5. Save Changes