Chapter 3 - Antigen services
Applies to: Microsoft Antigen
The Antigen services are the components that run on the SMTP server and control all back-end functionality of Antigen for SMTP Gateways. They process requests from the Antigen Administrator, control the scanning processes, generate e-mail notifications, and store virus incident data to disk (which can be viewed using the Antigen Administrator). When an Administrator-only installation of Antigen is performed, the Antigen services are not installed.
About services
The following sections describe the services used by Antigen for SMTP Gateways.
AntigenService service
The AntigenService service acts as the server component that the Antigen Administrator connects to for configuration and monitoring. AntigenService coordinates all SMTP scanning activities. The AntigenService startup type defaults to Manual and should not be changed. After being installed, AntigenService becomes a dependency on the AntigenMonitor service. The Schedule service becomes a dependency of AntigenService and must be operating properly for AntigenService to initialize.
Important
If AntigenService or AntigenMonitor is disabled, e-mail will continue to flow without being scanned for viruses or spam.
AntigenMonitor service
The AntigenMonitor service monitors the SMTP processes to ensure that Antigen for SMTP Gateways provides continuous protection of your messaging environment.
AntigenIMC service
The AntigenIMC service is responsible for connecting to the SMTP stack to ensure that messages are scanned by the AntigenInternet process. AntigenIMC becomes a dependency on the SMTP service on Exchange 2003 and Exchange 2000.
AntigenInternet service
The AntigenInternet service is responsible for ensuring that all messages that pass through the SMTP stack are scanned prior to delivery.
AntigenStatisticsService service
The AntigenStatisticsService service is used to log scanning statistics for all Antigen for SMTP Gateways scan jobs. This information is then available for retrieval by the Antigen Enterprise Manager.
Disabling the Antigen services
The Antigen services can be disabled using the Enable Antigen option in the General Options work pane. This selection box provides the following options:
- Enable
- Disable
To disable scanning, select Disable and click Save. The Antigen services must be recycled for the change to take effect.
Recycling the Antigen services
The Services Control Manager is used to recycle the Antigen services.
To recycle the services
Stop all Antigen services. (For details, see Disabling the Antigen services.)
Wait for all services to completely shut down.
Use Task Manager to make sure that no Antigen processes are still running.
Start all Antigen services.
Warning
While the Antigen services are unavailable, mail will continue to flow but will not be scanned for viruses or spam.
Securing the service from unauthorized use
AntigenService utilizes DCOM to launch and authenticate Antigen Administrator connections. You can build an access list of authorized users who can connect to AntigenService utilizing the Antigen Administrator.
To build an access list of authorized users
Open a Command Prompt window.
Type DCOMCNFG and press ENTER. The Component Services dialog box appears.
In the Console Root section, expand Component Services, expand Computers, expand My Computer, expand DCOM Config, right-click AntigenService, and then select Properties. The AntigenServices Properties dialog box opens.
Click the Identity tab and configure your user accounts.
Click the Security tab and use the permissions lists to control which user accounts have rights to launch AntigenService, access AntigenService, or change the DCOM configuration. Click OK to exit the AntigenServices Properties dialog box.