Japanese company VA Linux Systems, a leading provider of Linux solutions for the telecommunications and enterprise systems markets, has announced the release of SMTPGuard, an Open Source, anti-spam software solution for MTAs, which can eliminate unsolicited e-mails (SPAM) flexibly.

SMTPGuard is a part of' VA FMS, the company's total messaging solution. VA FMS is based on Open Source Software and known for its high reliability, high availability, high performance, and extensibility, which enable VA FMS to support large networks with over 100 million accounts.

"The release of SMTPGuard as an OSS this time is basically a sequel to the release of FlexPOP in June, 2005." said Tetsuya Ueda (pictured), President and CEO of VA Linux in Tokyo. "However, VA Linux has been opening up not only them but also other components which compose VA FMS. VA Linux's technological excellence and the firm roots on Open Source will bring more reliable Open Source-based solution to our customers."

SMTPGuard collects information acquired in SMTP sessions such as IP addresses, MAIL FROMs, RCPT TOs or their patterns and the number of times of appearance. It then calculates weight points based on user-designated set of rules, and tells MTAs to perform appropriate actions such as denying mails, delaying answering sessions, sending warning e- mails to the administrators and so on.

With SMTPGuard, even if SMTP servers are drowned in a flood of SPAM mails even including virus mails, the administrators can control the incoming stream by limiting acceptance of mails sent by specific IP addresses or senders so that the mail system can operate stably. Weight points and actions in response to them can be set by users and highly customizable.

SMTPGuard has already been used on mail systems for Japanese ISPs with over 100 million accounts, and highly acclaimed by their users as an outstanding anti-SPAM solution.

SMTPGuard is released on the FlexGuard Project page at SourceForge.net (The source code, binary package and documents can be obtained from that page. Also, VA Linux has already done ITP (Intent To Package) and committed the SMTPGuard package to Debian GNU/Linux, thus Debianized SMTPGuard package will be available from the official Debian archive within weeks.