Sophos Email Appliance: overview

The Sophos Email Appliance is a specialized server which is used at the gateway to scan email for viruses and spam. This means that mail is scanned before it enters your network, and any unwanted or suspicious items can be removed before emails get to your mail server. You can also use it to scan outgoing email.

The Appliance plugs directly into your network. It provides a management console which you access from another computer, using a web browser.

The Sophos scanning software is already installed and configured on the Appliance when you buy it. You can either accept the defaults or customize the configuration if required.

Online help is installed and becomes available when you switch on the Appliance.

Getting started

Read the knowledgebase article that describes requirements for getting started.

Software installed on the Appliance

The appliance comes with the following software installed:

• Sophos Anti-Virus
• Sophos anti-spam
• Sophos IP Block Lists (for reputation filtering)
• Sophos web-based dashboard and management console
• System alerting and notification
• Postfix MTA (mail transfer agent)
• Hardened FreeBSD operating system.

Setting up the Appliance

You must perform the following steps to get the appliance running.

1. Mount the appliance in a rack in a suitable location. Full details are given in the printed document 'ES4000 Email Security Appliance Setup Guide' which comes with the appliance.
2. Connect it to your network, and plug in the computer that you are going to use to manage it. The Appliance will prompt you for information about your network, which you must provide, for example, IP addresses and Hostnames.
3. Run the configuration wizard. You can configure your own settings or accept the Appliance defaults. (You can choose to have basic system settings configured before it is shipped to you).

Keeping the appliance up to date

The Appliance is automatically updated whenever a new version of Sophos software is released, for example the anti-virus or anti-spam engines, or virus detection files (IDEs). You can also install software upgrades manually.

Managing the appliance

The management of tasks, network and appliance monitoring, and reporting, is accessible via the web-based management console.

Appliance reporting

A variety of reports are available. Details are given in the online help.

What types of alert are sent to Sophos support?

The system alerts the administrator, and Sophos support, in the event of a software anomaly or hardware component failure. No information about mail flow or message content is passed on to Sophos.

The Appliance supports Active Directory

With Active Directory support you can perform a number of tasks, including importing user lists from other systems, and policy enforcement and authentication.