Configuration Question - RBL

[Jeff A. Earickson]

Julian,

I'm puzzling over the same issue.  I already use RBL+ in sendmail
(we bought the service), so sendmail can continue rejecting stuff
tagged by RBL+ and I don't need either mailscanner or spamassassin
to look at the MAPS databases.  But I am interested in using other sites
like spamcop.net in either mailscanner or spamassassin.
Which one might be preferred and where to twiddle the settings?

You said yesterday in my query about adding in spamassassin usage to
mailscanner:

  "The only thing you might want to do is track down the "ignore_rbl_checks"
  option in its preferences file, uncomment it and set it to 1. MailScanner
  or SA can do the RBL checks for you, but you don't need both of them doing
  it."

The parameter is actually "skip_rbl_checks", but anyway, if I set this
guy to one then it looks like I turn off *all* the RBL-like DNS lookups
in spamassassin, right?  I stared at the perl code for spamassassin and
this seems to be the case.

I'm concluding for the moment that I want to leave skip_rbl_checks at its
default setting of zero, and comment out the Spam-List references
in mailscanner.conf -- let spamassassin do the DNS work and tune it via
the RCVD_IN_ score settings for the various RBL-like services.

** Jeff A. Earickson, Ph.D                         PHONE: 207-872-3659
** Senior UNIX Sysadmin, Information Technology    EMAIL: jaearick at colby.edu
** Colby College, 4214 Mayflower Hill,               FAX: 207-872-3076
** Waterville ME, 04901-8842
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On Thu, 23 May 2002, Julian Field wrote:

> Date: Thu, 23 May 2002 16:11:50 +0100
> From: Julian Field <jkf at ECS.SOTON.AC.UK>
> Reply-To: MailScanner mailing list <MAILSCANNER at JISCMAIL.AC.UK>
> To: MAILSCANNER at JISCMAIL.AC.UK
> Subject: Re: Configuration Question - RBL
>
> At 15:45 23/05/2002, you wrote:
> >When using RBL spam avoidance, is there any reason why one would prefer to
> >perform the checking in:
> >1) sendmail
> >2) mailscanner
> >3) spamassassin
> >
> >Certainly there would be no advantage in performing the RBL tests more
> >than once, right?
>
> Correct.
>
> >If sendmail is the first step in the process, then it would seem best to
> >let sendmail do the RBL
> >testing to prevent any further processing, right?
>
> Depends if you want to bounce it or merely tag it. MailScanner or
> SpamAssassin gives you the option to just tag it, rather than bounce it
> (which is all you can do with sendmail). MailScanner gives you the choice
> (per-user or per-domain) to deliver it (tagged as spam), delete it, or
> archive it.
> --
> 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
>