MX gateway and outbound smarthost integration on DirectAdmin servers

Name: DirectAdmin Mail Gateway
Brand: Pitbull

Pitbull MX gateway for Exim-based mail on DirectAdmin (Commercial): inbound filtering, quarantine, outbound relay and NOC visibility. Offload server-side antispam to the cloud.

DirectAdmin · MX Gateway Inbound + Outbound

Inbound MX ROUTED

Filter engine RSPAMD

Quarantine 8

Outbound relay AKTİF

DirectAdmin Exim MX Gateway Quarantine NOC

3-5 min

MX setup

Exim

Native MTA

Commercial

Panel type

KVKK

Local processing

Integration challenges

Pitbull solves mail security on this platform with the MX gateway model.

Panel antispam load

SpamAssassin/Rspamd scanning on DirectAdmin servers consumes CPU and RAM; offload is essential.

Outbound abuse risk

A single tenant can affect delivery for entire shared hosting IP blocks.

Scattered DNS management

Manually tracking MX, SPF and DKIM for hundreds of domains is error-prone.

Missing central visibility

Hard to monitor traffic, quarantine and reject reasons in one NOC outside the panel.

Pitbull MX gateway model for DirectAdmin

On DirectAdmin hosting panels, mail traffic is typically handled via Exim. Pitbull integration requires no extra agent — point MX records to the gateway address and optionally route outbound via smarthost/relayhost through Pitbull.

Inbound: MX routing

Point MX records to the Pitbull gateway via DirectAdmin DNS management or external DNS panel
Rspamd-based spam, phishing and malware filtering at the gateway layer
Suspicious messages isolated in quarantine with score and SPF/DKIM/DMARC breakdown
Malicious attachment scanning via ClamAV / Avast REST

Outbound: smarthost / relay

Route outbound traffic to the Pitbull relay via Exim smarthost or relayhost settings. Protect shared IP reputation with per-tenant outbound monitoring, SMTP Abuse Radar and Emergency Outbound Lockdown.

Hosting operations

End-to-end mail security for hosting providers on DirectAdmin with WHMCS billing, self-service customer portal, executive PDF reports and KVKK-compliant Turkey Tier III data processing.

Smarthost configuration

Outbound relay and MX routing steps

Outbound — Smarthost (DirectAdmin / Exim)

On Exim-based DirectAdmin installations:

Admin Level → Exim Configuration or edit /etc/exim.conf
Add smarthost router (same Exim syntax as cPanel example)
Target: [relay.pitbull.com.tr]:587 — SMTP AUTH + TLS required

pitbull_smarthost:
  driver = manualroute
  domains = ! +local_domains
  transport = remote_smtp
  route_list = * [relay.pitbull.com.tr]
  port = 587
  hosts_require_auth = *
  hosts_require_tls = *

Add credentials to /etc/exim/passwd.client and reload Exim.

Inbound — MX

In DirectAdmin DNS or external DNS:

@  MX  10  mx.pitbull.com.tr.

Illustrated setup guide

Pitbull integration on this platform is completed in 4 visual steps.

MX Gateway

Point DNS MX to the Pitbull gateway address.

SPF · DKIM · DMARC

Add authentication DNS records.

Outbound Relay

Set Pitbull relay as smarthost / relayhost.

NOC Verification

Send a test email and verify in the NOC panel.

Setup steps

1 Point MX records to the Pitbull gateway via DirectAdmin DNS or external panel.
2 Add Pitbull include to SPF without breaking existing records.
3 Add the domain in Pitbull panel; publish DKIM TXT to DNS.
4 Route outbound via Exim smarthost/relayhost to the Pitbull relay address.
5 Send a test email and verify inbound/outbound traffic in the NOC panel.

Key features

✓ MX inbound gateway
✓ Exim smarthost outbound
✓ Centralized Rspamd filtering
✓ Quarantine & FP management
✓ SMTP Abuse Radar
✓ Customer portal
✓ WHMCS support
✓ Tier III data center

Platform

Other integrations

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