On Fri, 5 Sep 2003, Sheldon Hearn wrote:
> Since viruses should be rejected at SMTP time, I can't think of a
> situation where Exim would accept an infected message, then fail to
> deliver it and have to send a bounce.
>
> Could you explain the context in which this problem surfaces?
Simple. A virus that *isn't* rejected at SMTP time! Not everybody has
got virus scanning enabled.
[In fact, we were in the process of cautiously rolling out virus
scanning on our central servers, gradually putting more and more load
through the scanner - so as not to overload it - when Sobig.F struck.
As it happened, my email wasn't going through the scanner at that point.
In the first 2 days my personal filter rejected 40,000 messages (but
discarded them, not bounced them). The full load was hastily dumped on
the scanner. It coped, fortunately. Since then I've been /dev/null-ing
about 1500 collaterals a day. Sigh.]
--
Philip Hazel University of Cambridge Computing Service,
ph10@??? Cambridge, England. Phone: +44 1223 334714.
