SPF

[Ken Goods]

John Hinton scribbled on Tuesday, August 10, 2004 10:57 AM:

> Steve Evans wrote:
>
>> You got it backwards.  If you have Sendmail doing SPF it would drop
>> the mail before it get's to MailScanner.
>>
>>
>>
>>
>
> I guess that's where I'm getting confused. On the install of
> MailScanner, it said to stop sendmail and run MailScanner which then
> seems to start sendmail as needed. So the order seemed
> backwards to me.
> It would be nice to get a step by step of just what happens
> as an email
> first hits a system to the point of its delivery into the user's
> mailbox. I've never had a really clear picture of this series
> of events,
> and it is pretty complex with procmail, access, AV, SA and so
> on called
> during the transport. The hardest part for me, would be the RBLs run
> with MailScanner. Does MS immediately call sendmail and then
> run the RBL
> checks after email passes any other rules set through sendmail?
>
> Sorry, but I'm having a hard time getting this part down.
>
> Best,
> John Hinton

I wholeheartedly agree with you John. My setup is different than yours with
Sendmail->Mailscanner->Spamassassin->clamav, but it would be very helpful to
have a "roadmap" of the path an email takes from receipt to delivery (in my
case relayed to the Exchange server). I do some rbl's in Sendmail which seem
to take precedence over Mailscanner (they get dropped before Mailscanner see
them) but after that I have no idea what the order of scanning is. Debugging
would be so much easier if I understood the path an email takes.

But then again, maybe I'm just dense. :)

I think the main reason there isn't this type of documentation out there is
that there are an almost infinite variety of ways you can implement
Mailscanner and the associated "helper" programs. And I imagine the path an
email takes may vary based on what programs you are running in conjunction
with MS. Could be a daunting task. But if someone knowledgeable took the
time I'd surely take the time to read it!

Regards,
Ken

Ken Goods
Network Administrator
MIS Dept.
AIA Insurance, Inc.

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