[ILUG] Spam and more spam

[Justin Mason]

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Rick Moen writes:
>Quoting Colm Buckley (colm at tuatha.org):
>
>> Unless I can eliminate the spam and virus mail before it hits mailman, 
>> this isn't really an option....
>
>And that _is_ of course the key to the matter.  Thus my prior post,
>which primarily concerned the gain from SMTP-time callbacks and other
>MTA-level intelligent detection and handling.
>
>In addition to my own mailhost's lists, I'm also listadmin for a bunch
>of mailing lists concerning Linux Gazette (the real one, that lives at
>http://linuxgazette.net/) -- and regret frequently having agreed to do
>that, because the MTA admin does _not_ do SMTP-time filtering, resulting
>in that same barrage of junkmail in the mod queue you mention.  (At my
>insistence, all those lists are configured for subscriber-only posting,
>resulting in me rather than the membership being plagued by junkmail.)
>
>I've considered withdrawing my offer to admin those lists until the
>machine owner implements smarter MTA behaviour, but will probably endure
>the hassle for a while longer.
>
>
>Re-implementing Marc Merlin's work inside the Postfix framework sounds
>like a job that's (1) very worthwhile, but also (2) a lot of work, and
>therefore (3) a-priori unlikely to occur.  I'd be delighted to be proved
>wrong about that, as I have enormous respect for that MTA.
>
>My pessimistic prediction, then (based on long acquaintance with the
>quirks of sysadmin psychology -- not least my own) is that a decision
>that Marc's ideas should be re-implemented in Postfix instead of using
>Exim4 equates to deciding against the idea, merely on the installment
>plan rather than right away.

Marc's work *is* nifty, he's done a good job of integration there.
But there are alternative ways to implement SpamAssassin with
Postfix at the MTA level.

The easy way is to define a simple transport to filter all mail
through SpamAssassin:
http://wiki.spamassassin.org/w/IntegratedInMta

The more complex, but in this case more useful and sa-exim-ish way:
http://wiki.spamassassin.org/w/IntegratedInPostfixWithAmavis
(I'd skip Razor though.)

BTW another possibility -- write a simple script that catches
list posts on the list addrs, filters through spamc, and sidelines
the spam.   That would be pretty easy ;)

You'd need to use a high threshold though, to avoid FPs -- and
probably write a rule or two, or train a bayes db, to catch
the viruses.

- --j.
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