rbls in sendmail

[Support ePaxsys/FRWS]

At 04:22 PM 4/8/04 -0700, Ken Anderson wrote:
>Support ePaxsys/FRWS wrote:
>
>>Hi
>>
>>'Personally' we run the RBLs all from inside Sendmail and use MailScanner
>>for virus checks and rudimentary SPAM checks only. DNSBL set up for
>>Sendmail is a piece of cake.
>
>But AFAIK, it doesn't check received headers like SpamAssassin does.
>That's why I'm not wanting to lose that ability by moving the rbl checks
>into sendmail. There seem to be a couple milters that check received
>headers. I'm just fishing for anyone's experience with them.
>Thanks,
>Ken A



What does checking Received Headers really do for you? (its a good
question!). Sendmail is checking the last place that the mail came from
against various RBLs and blocking it on that basis.

We have found that too much checking below that level can result in lots of
false hits, since a lot of legitimate email comes from places centered
around the IPs the RBLs block. So our use of the RBLs where they are
actually has shown some benefit for us.
If I wanted to block using RBLs further into the mail header I would likely
go the Procmail route - though aside from blocking some IP ranges
(currently, as 2nd level SPAM blocks), that has not seemed to make much of
a difference here since they change so much.

Just my opinion.

JPP



>>We use 5 or 6 DNSBLs including the SBL-XBL SpamHaus list.
>>
>>The load on our busiest mail server is rarely above 2 or maybe 3 handling
>>tens of thousands of mails a day. Hats off to the MailScanner folks for a
>>versatile and friendly program. We just leave the DNSBL stuff to Sendmail
>>to lessen the server load and make log parsing/stats far easier.
>>
>>The J-Chkmail Milter does 'some' SPAM trapping (only REAL obvious SPAM,
>>non-negotiable types) and Procmail does the final SPAM handling for us.
>>
>>Regards
>>Jerome
>>
>>
>>At 03:35 PM 4/8/04 -0700, Ken Anderson wrote:
>>
>>>Hi All,
>>>
>>>I'm thinking of moving SBL-XBL and maybe SURBL tests to sendmail.
>>>Anyone running sendmail with some rblchecks via a milter that checks
>>>received headers too?
>>>
>>>Any recommendations?
>>>
>>>Thanks,
>>>Ken A
>>>Pacific.Net

ePaxsys/FRWS Technical Staff
ePaxsys, Inc. http://www.epaxsys.net
FRWS: http://www.frws.com
Live Text Support: http://www.epaxsys.net/live-help