mailscanner behind a smtpd frontend

[Glenn Steen]

On 13/02/06, Alex Neuman van der Hans <alex at nkpanama.com> wrote:
>
>
> Glenn Steen wrote:
> > Quite true Alex, forgive me for the sloppy last sentence.
> >
> > Actually, you can set up a "red box" like an ordinary (meaning
> > *normal*) firewall too... Really no need to use 'em like anything
> > else.
> >
> True... More and more I find such dumbed down red boxes, doing for $10k
> what can be done for a couple of dozen dollars of commodity (or even
> used) hardware. Even so, the red boxes will occasionally hiccup - or
> completely die on you, requiring tedious reloading of software and
> rules. The sysadmins can't work up the nerve to come up to the PHB and
> tell him that red box his golf buddies told him about is just an
> overpriced and overmarketed piece of ... equipment that provides a
> function that could have been demonstrably better performed at a lower cost.

No argument from me!

> That's one of my pet peeves. The other one that comes up a lot is the
> fact that most of those same sysadmins will buy these "transparent
> proxy" boxes that come with one or more forms of "antivirus", for
> e-mail/web/etc. - instead of a properly configured box with MailScanner
> + squid + clamav + squidclamav + etc.. These are the same sysadmins that
> call you for help 6 months later when their entire network became a
> botnet after becoming infected with spyware (AV vendor says "it's not a
> virus, so why do I care"), or when they find they can't send email out
> because they've wound up on an RBL because their network is an unwitting
> spam source, or to find where and how the keylogger got installed on the
> PHB's machine, or to see if there's anything we can do to get his
> ebay/bank/email password back after someone stole it because they
> trusted an overpriced "commercial" offering they'd heard of instead of a
> system of tools that are known to work better, faster and more efficiently.

Just for the record.... You are now officially preaching to the choir.
An entertaining rant nonetheless.

> I think I'd better go back to work; I haven't even had my first cup of
> coffee and I'm already ranting... can't imagine what I'll be like around
> noon after my 4th... ;)

Oh, I imagine you'll be fine Alex. Take a bear over lunch, have a nice
siesta... :-):-)
(I'm into my 6-7 (lost count)... And nearing the end of the day
here... Not exactly feeli9ng my best either:)

--
-- Glenn
email: glenn < dot > steen < at > gmail < dot > com
work: glenn < dot > steen < at > ap1 < dot > se