Configuration Question - RBL

[Julian Field]

At 16:49 23/05/2002, you wrote:
>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?

Up to you which you choose. If you want to tag all mail that came from an
RBL, then MailScanner makes that very easy. But if you want it to be
tunable via the SpamAssassin scoring system, then that's the way you should
do it.

>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

Yes, sorry about that. I remembered it wrong.

>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.

Correct.

>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.

As you want it tunable by the SpamAssassin scoring system, then that is the
right choice for you.

As for me, I want to tag *all* mail that came from a host listed in an RBL,
so I have MailScanner do the job. If you want to *reject* all mail that
came from a host listed in an RBL, then sendmail is the right answer.

It's horses for courses, as they say...

>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
> >

--
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