Spamassassin is slow - any tips or good commercial alternative?

[Charlie]

>>I run an email server (Exim) which uses Mailscanner in combination with
>>ClamAV and SpamAssassin. The server scans about 15,000 emails per day. 
>>SpamAssassin currently seems to take 5-10 seconds to scan even the smallest 
>>email, which is unacceptable for us.

>May I ask why? Is it because your mail system is getting into load
>trouble? Or is the delay itself on legit mail the problem? I would like
>to know how an additional 5-10 seconds on an async communication medium
>like e-mail that was never designed for real-time in the first place
>could be a problem.

It is not really a problem except during peak hours, where there can be numerous emails sent every 1-2 seconds. These emails then pile up on eachother, and eventually cause the mail queue to grow very long, with emails taking 8-15 *minutes* to actually leave the queue. It is then a very serious problem.



>If it is a load problem you should try to reduce the amount of mail
>reaching SpamAssassin in the first place. RBLs come to mind. Or (since
>you asked for a commercial solution) have a look at BarricadeMX from
>FSL. BMX will greatly reduce the amount of mail reaching your MTA.

Our userbase means that over 99% of emails sent through the server are *not* spam, so any limiting of the emails reaching the MTA would not help.

>Yet on the other hand, if the 15.000 mails a day that your server scans
>are mostly ham, this will not help. So please enlarge a bit on the
>problem itself.
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