[Mimedefang] Re: compare mimedefang to mailscanner

Jeff Rife mimedefang at nabs.net
Tue Jan 16 21:29:31 EST 2007


On 16 Jan 2007 at 12:10, John Rudd wrote:

> And I would like to second that statement.  I've used both quite a bit 
> in both home environments and in mission critical production 
> environments.  I don't think MailScanner is an inferior package.  With 
> one exception (the order in which it does its checks) it is VERY good at 
> attacking the anti-virus/anti-spam problem with the strategy it uses. 
> It's just not the strategy I prefer.
> 
> MIMEDefang is _also_ VERY good at attacking that problem with its own 
> strategy.  It's just not the same strategy that MailScanner uses.  And, 
> clearly, I prefer MIMEDefang's strategy.

The ordering of the checks plus the ability to add more ways to reject 
also allows MIMEDefang to do less for each e-mail.  The vast majority
of connections to my box don't ever result in a virus or spam scan,
because they are rejected long before that.  I don't even use any DNSBL 
or other outright blocking...every connection is evaluated on its own 
merits (or lack thereof :).

> The one thing I would say is a weakness with MIMEDefang is that, as 
> Scott suggests, there's a little bit of a learning curve if you want to 
> strike out on your own.

When I started with MIMEDefang I hadn't even *seen* a Perl program 
before, and it took me very little time to get a system up and 
running...several weeks at the most.  It did take me quite a while to 
get all my policy coded, but a lot of that time was deciding on what 
the policy should be.


--
Jeff Rife | "Isn't that just great?  I can't find a real 
          |  relationship...I'm incapable of meaningless 
          |  sex...what does that leave me?  Oh, my 
          |  God...I'm gonna have to learn computers." 
          |         -- Jon Cryer, "Partners" 





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