On Tue, 15 Jul 2003, Alexander Prohorenko wrote:
> I'd like to install some resource-friendly SPAM control software for
> Exim, like SpamAssassin is. Unfortunetly, my mail server is
> running pretty old hardware, so SpamAssassin easily kills it with a
> load. Perl doesn't work good for us, though Mailman's Python works
> fine. I've tried a lot of tuning option for SpamAssassin, but still
> it needs too much resources. However, I'd like to install some SPAM
> control, because a lot of SPAM really abuses our customers.
Content filtering requires a certain level of processing power to happen -
take the input, run your matching over it, and then do something appropriate
with the result. There's no way you're going to get that beyond a certain
level of processor grunt.
If you're willing to go a different path, you can save processing (and
bandwidth, to boot) by using DNS blocklists. Good ones have very minimal
false-positive rates (and bounced senders can always make other arrangements
for information delivery).
But honestly, if you're being paid to provide this service, you *should* be
able to afford reasonable hardware to run on. I've run SA+amavis+exim on a
P166 for a smallish organisation (15 people). The machine ran reasonably
well, with some load management options in exim (to not run delivery
processes when the system load got up).
At <AU$700 for a basic duron system which would fly for mail processing, any
commercial service should be able to find the money to buy at least a
machine like that.
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Matthew Palmer, Geek In Residence
http://ieee.uow.edu.au/~mjp16
