GNU SAUCE

Blurb

SAUCE (Software Against Unsolicited Commercial Email) is an SMTP server that sits between the Internet and your actual mail software. It was originally written to help in the fight against spam, but it also helps encourage good configuration and administration in general.

SAUCE has various tactics for reducing incoming spam:

Extremely aggressive checks on incoming email and its sources. If any problems are discovered the mail is not accepted.
Spambait addresses: when mail is sent to a bait address its sources are blacklisted.
Mail from previously-unknown sources is delayed to give them a chance to try a bait address or get their account cancelled.

Pros:

SAUCE is very sucessful. It can cut spam by an order of magnitude.
Administrators using SAUCE have to deal with much less bounced mail.
SAUCE never bounces legitimate mail from correct, non-spamming sites.

Cons:

Most spam sources are misconfigured, but many other sites are too, and SAUCE will bounce their mail. SAUCE is not for you if clueless strangers often send you mail that's important to you.
SAUCE delays mail from new senders and sites (configurable, though).
SAUCE is something of a resource hog.
SAUCE is hard to install, especially if you're not using Debian.
SAUCE is controversial, because it deliberately rejects mail for technical deficiencies which wouldn't make it undeliverable.

SAUCE is not a users' mailer. It must be installed on a mail hub by the system administrator. It needs existing SMTP software, which must have standard anti-spam features such as relay prevention, checking recipients during the SMTP conversation, etc. Currently you must be using Exim, though support for other mailers could be added.

You also need Tcl 8.1 or later, and a reasonably recent adns.

Software which will make SAUCE easier to install or more functional:

authbind (as from Debian GNU/Linux).
userv (`you-serve').
Linux 2.2 ipchains firewalling.

Feedback

If you are subscribed to sauce-discuss please send bug reports there; otherwise mail them to sauce-bugreports@chiark.greenend.org.uk.

Mailinglists

I have set up mailinglists sauce-announce and sauce-discuss. The announcements list is moderated and will contain only announcements of important bugs, new versions, &c. The bug reports address mentioned above is also a mailing list; feel free to subscribe to it.

There are archives and subscription web pages, or you can subscribe by sending mail containing the word `subscribe' to sauce-announce-REQUEST@chiark.greenend.org.uk or sauce-discuss-REQUEST@chiark.greenend.org.uk.

Download

Available for download from chiark.greenend.org.uk are:

The current BETA version as a gzipped tarfile.
Debian GNU/Linux source and binary packages are available via anonymous FTP.
All versions distributed so far are also available via anonymous FTP.

You can also access the project CVS repositories:

A mirror of my CVS repository is available via rsync from rsync.chiark.greenend.org.uk::ftp/users/ian/cvs-pub/sauce (use FTP first to find your way around), or via cvsweb.
This web page is maintained in Savannah, where you can browse the webpage CVS.

SAUCE is also from the GNU Project FTP servers and their mirrors, and as a package for Debian (in the project/experimental section).

Copyright and licensing

SAUCE is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by the Free Software Foundation; either version 2 of the License, or (at your option) any later version.

This program and documentation is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but without any warranty; without even the implied warranty of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose. See the GNU General Public License for more details.

You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License along with SAUCE, or one should be available above; if not, write to the Free Software Foundation, 59 Temple Place - Suite 330, Boston, MA 02111-1307, USA, or email sauce-maint@chiark.greenend.org.uk.

Ian Jackson / sauce-maint@chiark.greenend.org.uk; more free software by me.

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