From owner-freebsd-isp@FreeBSD.ORG Fri Sep 12 01:47:00 2003 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-isp@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.FreeBSD.org (mx1.freebsd.org [216.136.204.125]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 51D2716A4BF for ; Fri, 12 Sep 2003 01:47:00 -0700 (PDT) Received: from marklar.blazingdot.com (marklar.blazingdot.com [207.154.84.83]) by mx1.FreeBSD.org (Postfix) with SMTP id BDD0B43FA3 for ; Fri, 12 Sep 2003 01:46:59 -0700 (PDT) (envelope-from marcus@blazingdot.com) Received: (qmail 54951 invoked by uid 503); 12 Sep 2003 08:46:59 -0000 Date: Fri, 12 Sep 2003 01:46:59 -0700 From: Marcus Reid To: James Godwin Message-ID: <20030912084659.GA53607@blazingdot.com> References: <1062767877.8cbd42c952096@mail.encontacto.net> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Disposition: inline In-Reply-To: X-Coffee-Level: nearly-fatal User-Agent: Mutt/1.5.4i cc: freebsd-isp@freebsd.org Subject: Re: Anti Virus for mail server X-BeenThere: freebsd-isp@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.1 Precedence: list List-Id: Internet Services Providers List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Fri, 12 Sep 2003 08:47:00 -0000 On Mon, Sep 08, 2003 at 05:15:21PM +0200, James Godwin wrote: > Hi, > > There has been no need for Anti Virus on our mail servers as most of our > clients are Mac users and our windows clients have anti virus installed on > their machines. > > Keeping windows virus updated updated is a mission so I was wondering what > the ideal Anti Virus app I should use for our Sendmail and Qmail servers? > > Any ideas would be much appreciated. To answer your question, I would check out Sophos antivirus running under sophie. I have found it to be ~10x faster than f-prot (standalone, not the daemonized scanner which may be faster) in an email content filter. To try and convert you to postfix: I've spent a lot of time with qmail/qmail-scanner, sendmail/mailscanner, and postfix/amavisd-new. Of these, here are my personal findings: qmail: Excellent, flexible, reliable system. Best if all you want is a mechanism for transferring rfc2822 messages over SMTP. However, once you want fancy functionality like TLS and smtp-auth and spam/virus filtering and other spam tactics, qmail starts looking a little stiff. I was a qmail buff for years and still use it for machines that just need plain-jane MTAs. sendmail: Ugh. Sheer pain. A misbehaving beast that should be put onto a rocket and launched into the sun. postfix: Excellent, powerful MTA. I've found it to perform gracefully under pressure, very efficient, good architecture, good ability to clean up when spammers make a mess of you, good content filtering, and a big bag of tricks for taming email in a world full of resource stealing spammers. My current choice for machines that have to handle a lot of email and do things with it. My only complaint is that I like qmail's configuration better. But postfix config was influenced by Sendmail (see above.) so I forgive it. Oh, and the postfix-users mailing list has almost as much traffic as freebsd-questions, with Weitese himself joining in almost every meaningful discussion. Ok, I'll stop now. Marcus