reject

[Matt Kettler]

Jan Agermose wrote:
> Hi
> 
>  
> 
> Using mailscanner I can delete, store, forward spammail, but Im missing 
> the ”reject”? Is this not possible or am I simply misreading the docs J

MailScanner gets called after the message has been accepted and queued. At that 
point, it is by far too late to reject a message.

In theory MailScanner could do a post-delivery bounce on it, but that will 
generally get your server blacklisted pretty quickly.


This really boils down to one of the fundamental trade offs of when to call a 
spam scanner in your mail chain. There's 4 primary points this can be done at, 
each with various advantages and disadvantages.

Mailscanner would be "MTA, Mail Queue" in the list below. rejecting is only 
possible at the "MTA, SMTP session" configuration, which MailScanner isn't.

MTA, SMTP session:  can reject, one scan per message, bogs down under bursty 
traffic, limited per-user configuration.

MTA, Mail Queue: cannot reject, one scan per message, handles bursts well, 
limited per-user configuration.

MDA, Mailbox Delivery: cannot reject, one scan per recipient per message (more 
load), handles bursts well, flexible per-user configuration.

MUA, Desktop delivery: cannot reject, one scan per recipient per message (more 
load), handles bursts well, flexible per-user configuration, uses desktop 
resources for scanning (distributes load).