[Mimedefang] RBL's

[Jason Gurtz]

On 5/17/2004 19:23, -ray wrote:

> On Mon, 17 May 2004, -ray wrote:
> 
>> Also should i just use a sendmail dnsbl, or let Spamassassin do the dnsbl 
>> queries?  There are advantages and disadvantages either way.  Where in 
>> Spammassin can i disable all the public RBL's but only leave access to my 
>> local RBL?

I've had very good luck with spamhaus rbl's, both sbl and xbl.  Compared
to other rbl lists spamhaus seems sane in who they black hole.  Since
these spammer worms have started going around the xbl list in particular
has cut down a *lot* on the amount of spam that comes in.  I wouldn't be
to worried too much about false positives if you just use the spamhaus
lists.  Spews and others are a compleatly different story in my
experience; some BH lists are compleatly irresponsible as far as who
they put on the list.  Also, be very carefull in considering if you want
to utilize a list that blocks *all* dial up and cable/dsl ip ranges,
that'll up the number of false positives.

As far as whether to let sendmail or spamassassin do the rbl check?  It
all depends; sendmail is much more efficient if you're just going to
blindly block mail based on the lists.  OTOH, if you want to score email
then let spamassassin do it's thing.

Where I work, email is a privilege, not a right; so, if a few emails get
deleated then oh well, tell em to use a better isp next time...  Here's
the ones I use with pretty much no complaints from the lusers:

FEATURE(`dnsbl', `relays.ordb.org', `Rejected - see http://ordb.org/')
FEATURE(`dnsbl', `blackholes.mail-abuse.org', `"Listed on
http://mail-abuse.org"')
FEATURE(`dnsbl', `sbl-xbl.spamhaus.org', `"Listed on
http://spamhaus.org/sbl or http://spamhaus.org/xbl"')
FEATURE(`dnsbl', `relays.visi.com', `"Listed on http://relays.visi.com"')
FEATURE(`dnsbl', `list.dsbl.org', `"550 rejected - see
http://dsbl.org/sender"')

Most of the complaints I receive come from spamassassin marking spam
'cause they insist on signing up with "spammy" commercial newsletters.
It's not that big of a deal for me to keep adding to the whitelist.

Another thing in my favor is that my workplace has no reason at all to
be receiving mail from the far east so I drop packets from large swaths
of the Internet at the border router.

Good luck, we're all hurting with you here in the mimefield  ;)

~Jason

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