Web Hosting Talk : Web Hosting Main Forums : Hosting Security and Technology : do I need spam assasin?

[dethfire]

if I don't have any mailboxes on my server? I should not have any incoming mail, can I disable it and save power?

[-3RROR-]

You can disable it, but also if you aren't going to be using mail at all, you can disable mailman and your pop/imap/smtp servers to save strain on the server (assuming they are installed and running).

[dethfire]

Originally Posted by -3RROR-

You can disable it, but also if you aren't going to be using mail at all, you can disable your pop/imap/smtp servers to save strain on the server.

awesome, how do I go about doing that?

[IceCreamMan]

Originally Posted by dethfire

awesome, how do I go about doing that?

Usually with the start up shutdown scripts. I'd ask a good friend, or hire someone who knows what there doing to log into your server and have a look around to see what you can SAFELY turn off and prevent from starting again.

[-3RROR-]

Well, which OS are you using?

EDIT: You can just STOP them, which will keep them stopped until the machine reboots. But there is a way to disable the service from running upon restart.

[dethfire]

Originally Posted by -3RROR-

Well, which OS are you using?

centos 4.4 with cpanel

[-3RROR-]

Fantastic, cPanel makes it easy.

Login as root to WHM and select Service manager on the left side.

Uncheck your POP3/IMAP/SMTP/spamd servers.

Also take note of what it says next to spamd: "SpamAssasin Server (if you choose to disable this, you should disable SpamAssasin in tweak settings as well)"

[dethfire]

great! also do I need BIND if my host is taking care of the name servers? (softlayer)

[-3RROR-]

you will need to have bind running on your server to run a proper web server. You didn't say exactly what you are using this for. But if you are a webhost or host websites, you need to keep BIND active.

[ringnebula]

If your host is really taking care of DNS (ie your domain(s) is/are setup to have dns handled by softlayer's dns servers) you don't need to be running bind either.

The quick way to disable init scripts is rename them to start with a lower case s instead of a S.

This all begs the question though, why are you running cPanel if you are only running one site on a box and no email (that is my assumption at this point)?