Anyone using zen.spamhaus.org?

[Jim Holland]

On Wed, 6 Sep 2006, Res wrote:

> Date: Wed, 6 Sep 2006 08:49:05 +1000 (EST)
> From: Res <res at ausics.net>
> Reply-To: MailScanner discussion <mailscanner at lists.mailscanner.info>
> To: MailScanner discussion <mailscanner at lists.mailscanner.info>
> Subject: Re: Anyone using zen.spamhaus.org?
> 
> On Tue, 5 Sep 2006, John Rudd wrote:
> 
> >>>   What's the point?  (it's the one feature of MS whose point I've never
> >>> understood)
> >> The benefit of MS versus MTA is that the mail is
> >> quarantined so can be released if the RBLs have got it wrong.
> >
> > Ok, I can admit that I hadn't considered that aspect at all (because I don't
> 
> RBL's first came about to stop waste of bandwith by spamming scumbags drop 
> em dead in the water, by use in MS it kind of defeats the purpose
> 
> if typically you get 100K rejects at MTA per day, thats 100K messages
> less you have to process, of course for SOHO's who get 10 a day it
> wouldnt really matter all that much.

I had a quick look at our yesterday logs and see, to my total amazement,
that we rejected 60K (sic) connections at MTA level - that is based on
greet-pause, blocked servers, domains, addresses, DNS problems etc etc.  
Didn't include unknown users.  So it is essential to do what you can at
that level first (our Internet link is only 64k for 2 500 e-mail users).  
I just don't want to use DNS blocklists there.  However after all that was
blocked there, MS blocked less than 500 more based on RBL checks.  That is
what is quarantined.  Of that, we would get probably a dozen or so 
requests a day for such mail to be released.  We find that even Hotmail 
and Yahoo servers occasionally get on RBLs.

Regards

Jim Holland
System Administrator
MANGO - Zimbabwe's non-profit e-mail service