Spam and ad/popup blockers: Recommendations please

[Doug Lee]

Oops, I meant to mention I use sendmail for my MTA but sometimes
consider switching to Postfix for ease of maintenance.

Leaving the rest of this message here for anyone reading last-first;
sorry for top-quoting...

On Thu, Jul 10, 2003 at 08:10:11PM +0100, lewiz wrote:
> On Thu, Jul 10, 2003 at 12:05:43PM -0400, Doug Lee wrote:
> > I seek a good system (or systems) for filtering out mail spam, email
> > viruses, and web pop-up ads and such at our FreeBSD Internet gateway.
> 
> For adverts I run Squid with adzap (in the ports).  I find it pretty
> good, although I find the pop-up support a little less advanced.
> 
> The email situation is different (since not everybody runs the same MTA
> (although /almost/ all people running proxies I know do use squid)) and
> depends heavily on your MTA.  I have tried quite a few (although for
> very low volume) and am now settled on Exim (althogh Postfix would suit
> my needs just as well).  Whatever you do (imho) do /not/ use Courier,
> because it is slightly pedantic about standards.
> 
> I run Exim with Julian Page's MailScanner (http://mailscanner.info/),
> which I find suits my purposes nicely.  It supports many virus scanners
> and uses SpamAssassin for spam checks (SpamAssassin also supports
> Bayesian filtering).  You can use more than one virus scanner, too.
> 
> If you're using Qmail, there is the excellent Qmail-scanner, which does
> a similar job.  MailScanner will also work with Qmail, though, and I
> like the way it works.  Postfix and Sendmail are also supported.
> 
> Another cross-MTA scanner is amavis (incld. amavis, amavisd and
> amavisd-new -- who knows which to pick?).
> 
> SpamAssassian can either add headers to ``considered spam mails'' and
> you can filter them on a per-user basis with procmail (or even allow the
> user to do it from the MUA -- possibly changing the Subject instead of
> the header), or just delete the mail.
> 
> > mailscanner
> 
> Weee!
> 
> > Spam Assassin
> 
> Used by MailScanner.
> 
> > Vipul's Razor (the razor-agents port)
> 
> See above.
> 
> > 2.  Minimal upkeep time required from admin.
> 
> Since setup I've not had to look at MailScanner (or adzap) again.
> 
> > 3.  Simplicity of use by user (users can mail spam to an address I set
> > up so it's flagged as spam, but I don't want users to have to know a
> > lot of tech stuff like procmail just to filter spam).
> 
> You could easily do something yourself to create a procmailrc, or just
> provide a stock one, and allow more advanced users to modify it, if they
> wish.
> 
> > Virus protection at the gateway is a lower priority since we protect
> > individual computers, but it wouldn't hurt.
> 
> For mail it's more important to do it at the gateway, I would have
> thought.  Especially where Outlook is concerned... :)
> 
>   Best wishes,
> 
> -lewiz.
> 
> -- 
> Don't feed the bats tonight.
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
> -| msn:purple at lewiz.net | jab:lewiz at jabber.org | url:http://lewiz.net |-



-- 
Doug Lee           dgl at dlee.org        http://www.dlee.org
Bartimaeus Group   doug at bartsite.com   http://www.bartsite.com
In laughter, love is found; but in tears, it is forged.  (12/09/01)