Thoughts on Barracudas?

[Martin Hepworth]

Julian Field wrote:
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> 
> Folks,
> 
> I have had some comments from a few people leaving the mailing list as 
> they are ditching their MailScanner setups and switching to Barracuda 
> applicances instead. They claim that things worked fine when they first 
> installed MailScanner, but gradually more and more spam is leaking 
> through, to the point where they have decided to abandon it.
> 
> 
> Here is what he said:
> 
> "I've tried Mailscanner on FreeBSD for almost one year. It worked great
> for about two months, then after every upgrade it began to let more and
> more spam through. I've tried everything to fix it and just got tired of
> my users complaining of increased spam.
> "It wasn't worth the headache. Your forums indicate that there are
> numerous people experienced the same problems I have encountered.
> "I have since purchased a Barracuda SPAM 200 firewall. This device has
> worked much better."
> 
> 
> 
> What is your opinion on the Barracuda appliance?
> How easy is it to use?
> Does it actually work?
> Can it survive the loads they say it can?
> 
> And, of course, how does it compare with MailScanner?
> 
> Please be open and honest, and as impartial as you can.
> 
> All of your thoughts are most welcome.
> 
> - -- 
> Julian Field

Jules

You need to maintain the SA side of things, make sure you have 
RulesDuJour etc installed and picking up the SARE and other rules.

Spam is an evolving thing and therefore you need to spend a little time 
making sure you system can auto-update. It's not a install/forget system 
- I think this way of thinking is another example of M$ skewing the 
market, you don't need all  those expensive well trained/experienced 
sys-admins!

 From what I've heard of Baracuda they are not very good (I've heard 
expletives use here). Cobweb (who run a hosted MS-Exchange business in 
the UK) used to use them but moved away about 6 months ago as the spam 
trapping was v poor.

Upgrading MS won't increase the spam getting through, this is just an 
excuse.....ya gotta setup SA correctly in the first place.

The thing how can we get people to setup SA better?


-- 
Martin Hepworth
Senior Systems Administrator
Solid State Logic
Tel: +44 (0)1865 842300

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