The following is the result of a live analysis done when spamming has been found from a Plesk server with the qmail mail server. This will help you to understand how to trace a qmail spamming in the server.
[root@server ~]# /var/qmail/bin/qmail-qstat
messages in queue: 758
messages in queue but not yet preprocessed: 0
We do have 758 mails in the queue. Let’s examine the queue with qmail-qread. Seeing a bunch of strange email addresses in the recipient list? Usually, it is meaning spam.
[root@server ~]# /var/qmail/bin/qmail-qread
[…]
You can examine the email content of the emails in the queue using the Plesk interface or just less command. Firstly we should find messages id using qmail-qread, then find the file holding the email in /var/qmail/queue with the find command.
[root@server ~]# /var/qmail/bin/qmail-qread
[…]
18 Jul 2008 02:01:11 GMT #22094026 1552 <>
remote user@yahoo.com
[…]
[root@server ~]# find /var/qmail/queue/ -name 22094026
/var/qmail/queue/mess/19/22094026
/var/qmail/queue/remote/19/22094026
/var/qmail/queue/info/19/22094026
[root@server ~]# less /var/qmail/queue/mess/19/22094026
Received: (qmail 10728 invoked from network); 22 Jul 2008 19:40:46 +0300
Received: from unknown (HELO User) (86.107.221.138)
by domain.com with SMTP; 22 Jul 2008 19:40:46 +0300
Reply-To: <support@PayPal.Inc.com>
From: “PayPal”<support@PayPal.Inc.com>
Subject: Dispute Transaction
Date: Tue, 22 Jul 2008 19:40:52 +0300
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/html;
charset=”Windows-1251”
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit
X-Priority: 1
X-MSMail-Priority: High
X-Mailer: Microsoft Outlook Express 6.00.2600.0000
X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V6.00.2600.0000
[…]
Oops, we do have some spam in the queue that’s received from the network (IP: 86.107.221.138). We should remove spam from the queue or the server IP address will finish listed in the RBLs, qmail-remove is the right tool for this job.
Check the number of the spams with the spam pattern (PayPal.Inc.com in this case):
[root@server ~]# qmail-remove -p ‘PayPal.Inc.com’
Now, remove spams (notice the -r switch), they all will end up in the /var/qmail/queue/yanked directory. Don’t forget to stop qmail daemon before (/etc/init.d/qmail stop).
[root@server ~]# qmail-remove -r -p ‘PayPal.Inc.com’
In a few minutes, we do have more emails with the same patterns from the same IP address.
That’s great, we do have the opportunity to examine SMTP traffic from the spammers IP address. Run tcpdump and wait a few minutes.
[root@server ~]# tcpdump -i eth0 -n src 86.107.221.138 \or dst 86.107.221.138 -w smtp.tcpdump -s 2048
Examining log file with less or wireshark we found that spammer is sending spam using LOGIN authentication:
220 server.domain.com ESMTP
ehlo User
250-server.domain.com
250-AUTH=LOGIN CRAM-MD5 PLAIN
250-AUTH LOGIN CRAM-MD5 PLAIN
250-STARTTLS
250-PIPELINING
250 8BITMIME
AUTH LOGIN
334 VXNlcm5hbWU6
dGVzdA==
334 UGFzc3dvcmQ6
MTIzNDU=
235
Interesting, let us decode the user/pass to see which account is used:
[root@server ~]# perl -MMIME::Base64 -e ‘print decode_base64(“dGVzdA==”)’
test
[root@server ~]# perl -MMIME::Base64 -e ‘print decode_base64(“MTIzNDU=”)’
12345
So, someone created a test account with a weak password and someone else guessed it and is sending spam through the server.
Let us find the domain owning of the mailbox.
[root@server ~]# mysql -uadmin -p`cat /etc/psa/.psa.shadow` psa
[…]
mysql> SELECT m.mail_name, d.name, a.password FROM mail AS m LEFT JOIN (domains AS d, accounts AS a) ON (m.dom_id = d.id AND m.account_id = a.id) WHERE m.mail_name=’test’ AND a.password=’12345′;
+———–+————+———-+
| mail_name | name | password |
+———–+————+———-+
| test | example.com | 12345 |
+———–+————+———-+
1 row in set (0.01 sec)
Next step is to delete test mailbox and send a warning to the client.
To improve your server’s security you’ll need to enable:
Server -> Mail -> Check the passwords for mailboxes in the dictionary
Creating a mailbox test with password “12345” is a stupid thing and spammers just love to exploit it.
If you require help, contact SupportPRO Server Admin
