Who does RBL checks - MailScanner or SpamAssassin?

[Dhawal Doshy]

Res wrote:
> Hi Martin,
> 
> On Wed, 7 Jun 2006, Martin Hepworth wrote:
> 
>> Res
>>
>> Yes that's another option, but I find this type of blacklist give too 
>> many
>> false positives. I prefer to get SA to do it, and merely add to the spam
>> score.
> 
> Ever tried running S.A on servers that do serious work, and want your 
> mail out of the queue and delivered the same week ? :)
> (I do run SA on the machines that can handle it though, but thats like 2 
> out of many)

Most of us run servers that pretty much do serious work ;-).. to each 
his/her way. You can use RBLs at:

MTA: Very effective, but prone to false positives.. at times RBLs get 
over enthusiastic causing collateral damage. Point in case SORBS 
blocking hotmail and spamcop blocking yahoo/gmail

MailScanner: Haven't tried this one.

SpamAssassin: Best way to use RBLs as per my POV.. the bad part being 
that mails originating from ROKSO (spamhaus) are accepted and then tagged.

I use it at:
1. The MTA level (spamhaus+spamcop+dsbl) and am quite aware of the FPs 
but that is something we (me and my customers) are ready to live with.
2. A ton others are used at the SA level as Martin hinted.
3. We also run a few RBLs of our own to take care of my country specific 
abusers.

- dhawal


> I use SORBS, spamhaus and spamcop, I trust them pretty much, SORBS can 
> be an issue with hotmail at times, when it gets to level 2 complaint 
> level we remove SORBS until its cleared up. I rather not waste any more 
> resources on privacy invading dweebs than I have to, hence why I prefere 
> MTA.