Answer

PROBLEM

Spamrazer updates are not being downloaded in GFI MailEssentials.

ENVIRONMENT

• GFI MailEssentials
• All supported environments 

SOLUTION

1. First, make sure that the license is valid for Spamrazer and that the license has not expired
2. If automatic updates are failing, try a manual update to find out if it's a network problem or a module problem within MailEssentials
3. If the manual update fails, try to telnet from the MailEssentials server to sn92.mailshell.net 80. If it can be reached, there will be a blinking cursor. Check the AuSpamrazer log to find out if there are any errors for the automatic updater. After that, check the audldownload log for any errors as well.
4. If there are network errors, please make sure port 80 is open for Spamrazer to update with. In the case of something like an ISA server, test to see if you can have it run on port 8080 instead of 80 and see if the update will be allowed then.
5. If the updates are still failing because of a network error, please get a wireshark capture to find out what happens when the update tries to get downloaded. If there is not a network error but one with saving the file on the machine, then check the folder permissions and folder restrictions to find out if there is a file size quota or broken permissions on the spamscore folder.
6. If everything checks out as normal after this point, please contact support for assistance

CAUSE

Normally the cause is a blocked port or content filtering blocking sn92.mailshell.net. Rarely it will be a problem with the definitions being corrupted.

As of October/November 2011, MailShell added some more servers to their list to add redundancy. Since there are are a number of new hostnames, we recommend that the admin configure their firewall to allow all HTTP connections to *.mailshell.net. Below is the full list of hostnames which can be used to download SpamRazer updates. If a firewall that has content filtering enabled, it might block files coming from these locations as well. Also, going to sn92.mailshell.net will possibly get redirected to one of these servers for load balancing:

sn92.mailshell.net
217.174.249.167    fh-uk03.mailshell.net
217.174.248.233    fh-uk04.mailshell.net
217.174.249.223    fh-uk05.mailshell.net
217.174.249.232    fh-uk06.mailshell.net
77.68.39.21    fh-uk07.mailshell.net
77.68.39.31    fh-uk08.mailshell.net
88.208.202.90    fh-uk09.mailshell.net
88.208.202.91    fh-uk10.mailshell.net
213.171.206.148     fh-uk11.mailshell.net
213.171.207.47     fh-uk12.mailshell.net
213.171.205.141     fh-uk13.mailshell.net
213.171.207.48    fh-uk14.mailshell.net
88.208.248.146     fh-uk15.mailshell.net
88.208.248.199     fh-uk16.mailshell.net
88.208.248.164     fh-uk17.mailshell.net
88.208.248.200     fh-uk18.mailshell.net
213.171.205.77     fh-uk19.mailshell.net
213.171.207.62     fh-uk20.mailshell.net
213.171.205.238     fh-uk21.mailshell.net
213.171.207.72     fh-uk22.mailshell.net
213.171.205.78     fh-uk23.mailshell.net
213.171.207.71     fh-uk24.mailshell.net
109.123.106.250    uk2-01.mailshell.net
109.123.106.251    uk2-02.mailshell.net
109.123.106.252    uk2-03.mailshell.net
109.123.106.253    uk2-04.mailshell.net
77.92.86.115    uk2-05.mailshell.net
77.92.86.116    uk2-06.mailshell.net
77.92.86.163    uk2-07.mailshell.net
74.208.97.139  u15278557.mailshell.net
87.106.251.72  s15410570.mailshell.net
74.208.97.105  u15278525.mailshell.net
74.208.97.46    u15278466.mailshell.net