Re: [PLUG] SPAM from being a list member/poster

["Kevin D. McAllister" <kevin@mcallister.ws>]

* Thu, Dec 12, 2002 at 08:53:10AM -0500, Paul wrote:
> I'm now running Spam Assassin through my Web hosting service.  Here are 
> some questions:
> 
> Does SA reduce the load on the mail server by blocking spam?

nope.  the mail server still gets the spam, it actually increases the
work the server has to do, because it does a bunch of perl regexs
against the message and in some cases will query some black lists.

It may decrease the work, as far as POP/IMAP is concerned because you
grab less messages, but overall it adds additional overhead to mail
processing. 

> 
> Is there another way to add addresses to the "blacklist" other than 
> manually modifying the user_prefs file?
> 

I don't think so.  You could write a simple script to do this, many
people have scripts to add a sender to their procmail killfile, you
could easily modify one of these to suit your needs.

Although I usually don't use the SA blacklist, I throw these messages
straight to /dev/null prior to SA processing, via procmail.  Why waste
the cycles if you know you are going to throw out the message anyway?

> How will I know if SA blocks non-spam messages?
> 

I have procmail configured to filter the message through SA then check
the X-Spam-Status: header if it says Yes, I throw it in a spam
mailbox, which I read through occassionally to check for any babies
that got thrown out with the bathwater.

But if you are are throwing your SA Spam right in the bitbucket you
may never know unless you review your procmail log or sendmail log.

-- 
Kevin D. McAllister
kevin@mcallister.ws
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