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Momentum Reference Manual (3.x)
beik – BEIK Module

beik – BEIK Module

Last updated March 2020

The beik module is an anti-spam module that provides support for the Symantec Brightmail Engine Integration Kit (BEIK). Because BEIK is an in-process version of the brightmail module it provides superior performance.

If you intend to use this module be sure to choose it during installation. For more information see “Installing Additional Packages”. The beik module is licensed by Symantec. Register this license as instructed by Symantec.

Note

This module is available starting from Momentum 3.0.24. In order to use this module, you must have the sieve module loaded.

Prior to version 3.2, this module was only available on systems running Red Hat 5 on either 32 or 64 bit architectures.

As of version 3.2, this module is available for Solaris AMD64 and as of version 3.4 it is also available for Solaris Sparc.

In Momentum 3.3.3, this module is not supported on the Red Hat 5 32 bit architecture.

As of Momentum version 3.5, upon installation, this module applies the "Service Provider Full" rule set. Previously the "Service Provider Express" set was applied. If you are using a low-performance machine you may wish to revert to the "Service Provider Express" rule set.

You must have a valid cert.pem file in place to use the beik module with Momentum. Take the following steps:

  1. Get the file_name.slf file from Symantec

  2. To create a cert.pem file run the following command as root:

    shell> /opt/msys/3rdParty/symantec/beik/sbin/register
    -c /opt/msys/3rdParty/symantec/beik/etc/bmiconfig.xml
    -l file_name.slf

  3. Stop ecelerity by issuing the command /etc/init.d/ecelerity stop and add a beik stanza to your ecelerity.conf file. Commit this changed file to the repository as described in step 8 in “Best Practices for Manually Changing Configuration Files”.

  4. Start BEIK by issuing the command: /etc/init.d/msys-beik start.

  5. Restart ecelerity by issuing the command: /etc/init.d/ecelerity start .

    Note

    You must restart ecelerity for these changes to have effect. Using config reload is ineffective here.

Momentum version 3.3 uses version 6.2 of Brightmail Engine Integration kit. As of version 3.4, Momentum supports version 6.3 of Brightmail Engine Integration kit.

Configuration

beik {
  use_wire_rep = true
  bmiconfig_path = "/opt/msys/3rdParty/symantec/beik/etc/bmiconfig.xml"
  header_padding = 512
}
accum_pool

Which thread pool to use when accumulating data against the scanned message. The default value for this option is the IO thread pool.

bmiconfig_path

This option indicates the full path to the BEIK configuration file, bmiconfig.xml. The default value for this option is /opt/msys/3rdParty/symantec/beik/etc/bmiconfig.xml. For more information about this file see the documentation provided by Symantec.

header_padding

When use_wire_rep is not or cannot be used, the number assigned to header_padding is added as padding to an internal allocation to avoid an additional call to realloc. Sizing for this is guided by approximate size of the trace headers added by this MTA. The value of header_padding should be larger than those trace headers, otherwise the internal memory buffers may need to be realloc'd. The default value for this option is 512.

scan_pool

Which thread pool to use when scanning a message. The default value for this option is the CPU thread pool. For more information about defining thread pools see threadpool.

use_wire_rep

If use_wire_rep = true (the default setting) and the message is “small” (i.e., it is less than large_message_threshold), then a dot-stuffed representation of the message is held entirely in memory and can be used as received, rather than loading pieces of the message as needed.

If use_wire_rep = false, or if the message is “large,” then a dot-unstuffed representation of the message will be generated and passed to the module. This involves more memory allocations (malloc) and copying of data (memcpy).

To summarize:

  • use_wire_rep = true and small message: no modifications will be passed to BEIK

  • use_wire_rep = true and large message: modifications will be passed to BEIK

  • use_wire_rep = false: modifications will be passed to BEIK

All messages that pass through the system are stored on disk dot-stuffed. This provides a more efficient transfer by eliminating the need to decode and then re-encode a message before it is sent.

Runtime Usage

Unlike other validation modules, BEIK is always loaded in passive mode. When a module is loaded in passive mode, inbound messages will not be virus scanned unless you explicitly call the appropriate scripting action.

Lua Functions

This module makes the Lua function msys.symantec_beik.scan available. For a description of how this function is used see msys.symantec_beik.scan.

Sieve Usage

Because the module is always loaded in passive mode, inbound messages will only be scanned when the Sieve beik_scan action is invoked.

This function should be invoked in the each_rcpt_phase phase as shown in the following:

$verdict = beik_scan;
vctx_mess_set "bm_verdict" $verdict;

beik and IPv6

The beik module does not currently support IPv6 addresses.

If you attempt to inject and scan a message with an IPv6 address you will see an error in the panic log similar to the following:

1337205547:BEIK: bmiProcessConnection() fatal error [0x3000006] client: The API received an invalid argument

There is no other indication of an error.

beik Management Using Console Commands

The beik module can be controlled through the ec_console; the following command is available:

14.10.4.1. beik reload

Use this command to reload the beik module. You do not need to manually invoke this command; it is triggered by the updates service, msys-beik.

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