<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN">
<HTML><HEAD>
<META http-equiv=Content-Type content="text/html; charset=iso-8859-1">
<META content="MSHTML 6.00.6000.16640" name=GENERATOR>
<STYLE></STYLE>
</HEAD>
<BODY>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>>>I run an email server (Exim) which uses
Mailscanner in combination with<BR>>>ClamAV and SpamAssassin. The server
scans about 15,000 emails per day. <BR>>>SpamAssassin currently seems to
take 5-10 seconds to scan even the smallest <BR>>>email, which is
unacceptable for us.<BR><BR>>May I ask why? Is it because your mail system is
getting into load<BR>>trouble? Or is the delay itself on legit mail the
problem? I would like<BR>>to know how an additional 5-10 seconds on an async
communication medium<BR>>like e-mail that was never designed for real-time in
the first place<BR>>could be a problem.<BR></FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>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.</FONT></DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV><BR>>If it is a load problem you should try to reduce the amount of
mail<BR>>reaching SpamAssassin in the first place. RBLs come to mind. Or
(since<BR>>you asked for a commercial solution) have a look at BarricadeMX
from<BR>>FSL. BMX will greatly reduce the amount of mail reaching your
MTA.<BR></DIV>
<DIV>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.</DIV>
<DIV><BR>>Yet on the other hand, if the 15.000 mails a day that your server
scans<BR>>are mostly ham, this will not help. So please enlarge a bit on
the<BR>>problem itself.<BR></FONT></DIV></BODY></HTML>