From owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Wed Apr 4 21:24:49 2007 Return-Path: X-Original-To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Delivered-To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.freebsd.org (mx1.freebsd.org [69.147.83.52]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 749F516A401 for ; Wed, 4 Apr 2007 21:24:49 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from kline@tao.thought.org) Received: from tao.thought.org (dsl231-043-140.sea1.dsl.speakeasy.net [216.231.43.140]) by mx1.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id D6DD313C448 for ; Wed, 4 Apr 2007 21:24:48 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from kline@tao.thought.org) Received: from tao.thought.org (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by tao.thought.org (8.13.8/8.13.1) with ESMTP id l34LPPsS081253; Wed, 4 Apr 2007 14:25:25 -0700 (PDT) (envelope-from kline@tao.thought.org) Received: (from kline@localhost) by tao.thought.org (8.13.8/8.13.1/Submit) id l34LPIhp081248; Wed, 4 Apr 2007 14:25:18 -0700 (PDT) (envelope-from kline) Date: Wed, 4 Apr 2007 14:25:18 -0700 From: Gary Kline To: Dan Nelson Message-ID: <20070404212518.GA81033@thought.org> References: <0875b56eeca4d320fd9fa7b0d940fce2@uni-svishtov.bg> <20070403044918.GH72689@dan.emsphone.com> <20070404032432.GA13302@thought.org> <20070404200907.GA45237@dan.emsphone.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Disposition: inline In-Reply-To: <20070404200907.GA45237@dan.emsphone.com> User-Agent: Mutt/1.4.2.2i X-Organization: Thought Unlimited. Public service Unix since 1986. X-Of_Interest: Observing twenty years of service to the Unix community Cc: Gary Kline , freebsd-questions@freebsd.org, Angelin Lalev Subject: Re: advice on anti-spam tools X-BeenThere: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list List-Id: User questions List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Wed, 04 Apr 2007 21:24:49 -0000 On Wed, Apr 04, 2007 at 03:09:07PM -0500, Dan Nelson wrote: > In the last episode (Apr 03), Gary Kline said: > > I've been experimenting with greylisting for months. Not sure the > > regular mail filter installs or not, but the devel version installed > > just now perfectly. > > > > Is there any tutorial on this or should I just re-read the man pages > > and other docs a few more times! From llooking at the config file in > > /usr/local/etc/mail, the "retry" seems to default to a #commented-out > > 1h. Sorry, but I have trouble parsing this kind of grammar: > > > > > > # How long a client has to wait before we accept > > # the messages it retries to send. Here, 1 hour. > > # May be overridden by the "-w greylist_delay" command line argument. > > #greylist 1h > > > > I didn't have any problems reading the config file myself. All the > config file options are also listed in the "greylist.conf" manpage, > too. Here's what the manpage has to say about the "greylist" keyword: > > greylist > > The argument sets how much time milter-greylist(8) will want the > client to wait between the first attempt and the time the message > is accepted. The time is given in seconds, except if a unit is > given: m for minutes, h for hours, and d for days. The greylist > keyword is equivalent to the -w option. Here is an example that > sets the delay to 45 minutes: > > greylist 45m > > > A 1 hour timeout could be "too long" for an impatient end-user, so I > have lowered that to 10 minutes. Most external servers retry at 15 or > 30-minute intervals. I also set the autowhite value much higher than > the default of 3 days (2 weeks), so frequent sending machines never > leave the whilelist. > What I got caught on was "client," altho from the context, here ``client'' seems to mean the mail-server-sending-spam.' In the unix world, my server is the client--unless the client-server model is different with email. Another reason I didn't reinstall is that an hour seems far too long. A few to <= 15 minutes seems closert to what a spammer just wouldn't bother with. Thanks for your insights! -- Gary Kline kline@thought.org www.thought.org Public Service Unix