On Tue, 15 Jul 2003 11:57:48 +1000
Craig Sanders <cas@taz.net.au> wrote:
> this is certainly possible in the latest postfix, but is not recommended due
> to the risk of the filter (i.e. SA or clamav) not responding within a
> reasonable time on a heavily-loaded system...which would result in SMTP
> session timeouts and bounces or retransmissions of email.
True. I was asking more for my own edification than any interest in the
overall discussion. I doubt my machine would ever become so overloaded on
that the mail it does handle would ever become in danger of having this
happen.
> (a lot of people want this, though....it was a feature recently added due to
> popular request. i probably want it myself, but i have to do a lot of
> testing before i decide whether it's worth the risks of implementing it on
> my mail servers or not).
Personally I love it in exim4/sa-exim. Cut down my spam load immensely
and added the benefit of me block a good load of spam that was destined for a
friend's machine for whom I am secondary MX.
> what is recommended is to let the filter tag the incoming mail (as
> spam/non-spam, virus/non-virus) and have the MDA either deliver, discard, or
> bounce[1] the mail.
I'd rather avoid MDAs if at all possible. People seem to think procmail
is god, I see it as an unneeded step, esp. since I am more concerned for the
few mail accounts I host for friends and family. They don't have shell access
so editing their .procmailrc, the cornerstone of making procmail remotely
useful, is moot. If I'm going to have a system-wide configuration might as
well have it in the MTA and be done with it.
> [1] bouncing (as opposed to SMTP 5xx rejecting) high-scoring mail is not a
> good idea, as you end up clogging your queue with undeliverable spam
> bounces....better to either deliver or discard.
Quite so. I had not been cleaning out my exim3 queue like I should have.
Well over 130 bounces frozen in just a few weeks. Since I started rejecting,
none.
--
Steve C. Lamb | I'm your priest, I'm your shrink, I'm your
PGP Key: 8B6E99C5 | main connection to the switchboard of souls.
| -- Lenny Nero - Strange Days
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