Thoughts on Barracudas?

[Billy A. Pumphrey]

> 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
> www.MailScanner.info
> Buy the MailScanner book at www.MailScanner.info/store
> 

I have thought about appliances in general just because they are set and
forget it type machines.  I would like very much for MailScanner to have
such an option.  I enjoy taking care of the MailScanner machine mainly
because I learn from configuring and messing it up.  That is about the
only reason.  I find that it is hard to learn what one needs to know to
get the most spam blockage.  I believe that I can do an excellent job at
blocking spam, but if you do not learn a bunch of things (if you were
like me) and take multiple days to set it up it does not do a very good
job.

It would be nice if there was a prepackage ( I guess fort systems covers
this area) that had all of the common units installed and it was ready
to go.  Had Rules installed, Pyzor, DCC, the SARE rules, trained Bayes
datatbase, ClamAV, bitdefender, MailWatch, etc.

Then after that, automatic updates would be super.  Most of the updates
are somewhat covered.  I guess the only ones missing from automatic
updates in my knowledge are MailScanner, SpamAssassin, and ClamAV,
MailWatch.

In essence all of that would turn MailScanner into a appliance type
machine, which I would think it would appeal to even more people.