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From: "Jonathan M. Bresler" <jmb>
Message-Id: <199711261804.KAA05780@hub.freebsd.org>
Subject: Re: major push by spammers?
To: mark@grondar.za (Mark Murray)
Date: Wed, 26 Nov 1997 10:04:31 -0800 (PST)
Cc: jmb@FreeBSD.ORG, jkh@time.cdrom.com, grog@lemis.com, chat@hub.freebsd.org
In-Reply-To: <199711261800.UAA01100@greenpeace.grondar.za> from "Mark Murray" at Nov 26, 97 08:00:36 pm
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Mark Murray wrote:
> 
> "Jonathan M. Bresler" wrote:
> > > The stuff in FreeBSD's sendmail rules workds well, no doubt about that, 
> > > but it is not failsafe. If your DNS is a bit slow, you can lose mail.
> > 
> > 	hmm....not sure that i agree with you.
> > 	if w are slow to resolve, the error code is 451, a temp error,
> > 	meaning try again later.  the spammers databases dont use DNS.
> > 	and RBL is failsafe.....so can you explain it to me?
> > 
> > 	i dont understand.
> 
> I'm looking at the rules again, and I'm confused. I have seen 
> legitimate mail from freebsd/hub.freebsd.org being bounced with a 500 
> code when DNS was ropey. I cannot figure out this happened from the 
> rules I have. I'll go with mea culpa unless proven otherwise :-).

	please send me the log entry if you have it.
	hub.freebsd.org should not be rejecting mail due to dns
	with 500 series error codes, but rhater should be using a 451
	error code
> 
> I meant:
> 
> The ruleset that I have (committed by Peter?) looks up the domain of 
> incoming mail. if it does not check, the mail is rejected. If the DNS 
> does not answer in time, the mail is bounced for the same reason.

	its not bounced, its tempoararily not-accepted ;)
	meaning the server should try to deliver again later.
	i should know i wrote those rules, after looking at 
	what others were doing.
> 
> Vixies RBL works in reverse; the spammer's IP is checked on connection. 
> If the RBL resolves the IP (PTR-style) to 127.0.0.2 then the mail is 
> rejected. If DNS fails, the mail is accepted by default.

	right.....so default you eat spam <gack!>
jmb