Email Scanner Problem

General Topics
1

Hi all,
I have just switched ISP’s and cannot get my email client to connect with The Avast Mail Scanner running … switch the Mail Scanner off and everything works as it should!
I think my ISP uses Google Mail because I have to configure my email client to port 995 (SSL) for pop and port 587 (TLS) for SMTP.
I have added these port numbers to Avast’s Internet Mail Redirect section (seperated by commas).
In case the problem might be linked to my firewall, I have given ashMaiSv.exe complete ‘freedom’.
I have tried with Thunderbird (my favoured email client) and Outlook Express; both produce the same results.
I would really appreciate any suggestions or pointers which would help me resolve this issue.
xpsp2.
Thanks
???

2

First of all, it’s not possible because Gmail uses SSL (Secure Socket Layer) connections. Avast mail scanner doesn’t support SSL (Secure Socket Layer) connections. But take a look here: http://forum.avast.com/index.php?topic=10428.0 to see how to set up secure email with avast!.

There is an explanation of this here: http://forum.avast.com/index.php?topic=28150.msg229981#msg229981

Since SSL/TLS e-mail is encrypted and decrypted in the client, external virus scanners (including avast!) can’t read or scan it.
The solution is to pass e-mail in and out un-encrypted from your client (Outlook Express, Thunderbird, …) to a proxy program (Stunnel) that does the actual ssl or tls encryption/decryption of the pop3/smtp e-mail and communicates directly with the ISP server on the appropriate ports. Download here: http://www.stunnel.org/download/binaries.html

3

Thanks Tech for the comprehensive reply and links.
Looks like I have a lot of reading and learning to do!
Thanks again.
JT.

4

You’re welcome. Feel free to come back any time you need help you just to change experiences 8)

5

As I’m sure you can tell, I’m not very ‘techy’ minded but I was just wondering how neccesary it is for me to scan my emails, given that googlemail (almost boasts about) use the very latest virus scanners on all email anyway?

6

Personally I don’t think your ISP uses Google Mail at all as they would I assume be breaking a number of copyright or other intellectual property rights.

All the Port number indicate is that your ISP uses SSL/TLS, secure email and unless they guarantee your email will be virus free and I doubt they would, nor would I trust that guarantee, I would say you need to scan your email.

Those ports are the default ones for secure email which more than gmail use.

7

Hi DavidR, I take your point about would I want to rely on their statement that they scan all incoming and outgoing mail for viruses.

Just for interest, it seems my new ISP have recently transferred their email to google mail, obviously with some deal drawn up between them and google (see qoutes below) … perhaps this is the direction things are now heading … makes a lot of commercial sense, even if it’s not what the consumer wants!

“Sky have started the migration of all their customers current email to the new Powered by Google email.”

“Sky in their wisdom have decided to migrate 1.1 million email addresses to Google Mail, affectionately referred to on SkyUser as Skoogle Mail.”

8

In a way it is handy if they give you a gmail email address unrelated to your ISP as if you change ISPs in the future you don’t have to tell everyone you have a new email address.

If however, it is some sort of lash-up where your isp email address is redirected to the google servers it isn’t so handy.

I have my own domain name and email service so I don’t rely on ISPs.

9

Unfortunately, it’s the latter … “some sort of lash-up”!!

10

It may be an advantage to get your own gmail account, independent of your ISP, as the ‘lash-up’ (I love that word) just ads another lever of complexity that could go wrong redirecting to gmail.

11

BTW, some time ago when I installed stunnel, I found the setup became easier than it used to be. I didn’t need to down load OpenSSL separately. If you are using Thunderbird, you may find this site helpful.

12

A second defense layer won’t harm…

  1. You need to download and install Stunnel.

  2. Change your configuration stunnel.conf file to:

cert = stunnel.pem

# GMail
client=yes

# POP3 service, listens on localhost:11110
[gmail-pop3s]
accept=127.0.0.1:11110
connect=pop.gmail.com:995

# SMTP service, listens on localhost:11025
[gmail-smtps]
protocol=smtp
accept=127.0.0.1:11025
connect=smtp.gmail.com:587
  1. Add ports 11110 and 11025 to avast redirection ports and uncheck the ‘Ignore local communication’ option.

That’s it.

13

That’s nice of you, Tech. I could have copied and pasted my configuration but since JT. described him/herself as “techy”…well I guess I was bit lazy. :stuck_out_tongue: