Size Limit on spam.actions.conf?

[Julian Field]

At 15:13 30/07/2002, you wrote:
> > Summary:  To describe MailScanner as "adequate software" would be akin to
> > saying global thermonuclear warfare would be "mildly unpleasant".

Aw, thanks...

> > That said, I have a question, which I hope is on-topic for this List:  Is
> > there a practical limit on the number of entries in the spam.actions.conf
> > file?

Adding rules that do not contain a "*" will have no impact on the speed
whatsoever (they are held in a hash table so the access speed does not
depend on the size of the table).
Adding rules that do contain a "*" will gradually slow it down (they are
held in a list and have to all checked for every address in each message).

So thousands of non-"*" entries are no problem, but I would avoid having
thousands of entries with a "*" in them. You probably won't notice a couple
of hundred or so.

> > I envision using this file as a home-grown blacklist, so to speak.  But I
> > hesitate before I break the whole system.

--
Julian Field                Teaching Systems Manager
jkf at ecs.soton.ac.uk         Dept. of Electronics & Computer Science
Tel. 023 8059 2817          University of Southampton
                             Southampton SO17 1BJ