Message Flow Diagram

[Jason Burzenski]

> My observations on the diagram are:
>
> 1. Very good, very useful.

Thanks!

> 2. Might be nice to show the Virus Test as an external
> process from MailScanner, even more so than the Spam Tests,
> as MS does do some of its own spam checks, however it does
> not do any of its own anti virus checking.

This is a great idea.  I will incorporate this into the document.  When I
originally implemented this server it was built for spam filtering only.
Virus tests were added later on, which may be apparent by the hasty addition
of virus tests to the diagram.

> 3. Might also be nice to indicate that multiple anti-virus
> engines can be used (choose the one you want, or use a combination).

I purposefully took out some of my environment specific information when
posting.  I am only using one virus scanner at this time but I hear many of
you use several.  I think the final version of this diagram could be
distributed with a 'fill in the blanks' approach so you could plug in your
own applications to the flow (for virus scanners and MTAs, since not
everyone uses sendmail).

> 4. At the end of the MailScanner process, you have Quarantine
> and Deliver; I think Discard and Bounce would be good to add as well.

I should have clarified my configuration before sending.  I run using high
scoring spam score 9 / spam score 4.5 with high scoring actions set to
store, forward spam-alert at domain.com mailbox and a spam score action set to
forward spam-review at domain.com, deliver.  That way, I have two mailboxes,
spam-alert can be reviewed by operations for false positives that were not
delivered to users and spam-review can be monitored by spam-filter staff for
false positives and considerations for modifications to the system.  This
configuration does allow for a lot of flexibility but when you are
identifying 20K+ spam messages per day, the mailboxes can get quite full
very quickly.  I have found this approach necessary for at least the initial
tuning phase of spam-filter system deployment.

>
> Hope these comments are useful,
>
> Regards,
>
> Antony.
>
> --
>
> The idea that Bill Gates appeared like a knight in shining
> armour to lead all customers out of a mire of technological
> chaos neatly ignores the fact that it was he who, by peddling
> second-rate technology, led them into it in the first place.
>
>  - Douglas Adams in The Guardian, August 25, 1995
>
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