Re: [exim] MessageLabs 554 SMTP synchronisation error

Ian FREISLICH wrote:
> Marc Sherman wrote:
>>Suresh Ramasubramanian wrote:
>>>0s would be far better for ident.
>>
>>Like religious wars much? It's quite useful to some people, on the
>>sending end, for you to have ident data in your receiving-side logs when
>>you go to report a problem.
>
> Out of interest what proportion of your logs have useful ident data?
>
> I gave up on ident (asking and answering) nearly 10 years ago when
> the vast majority of my calls were unanswered. Personally, I think
> it's more important to keep your system time properly synchronised
> so that your timestamps are useful.

I still find the delay at the begining (30s by default) very useful for
getting rid of impatient spam sending servers (trojans mostly). They have a
simple SMTP client that just waits a certain time before sending - with a 30s
wait at the begining, they get an SMTP sync error.

As for useful Ident data? On the times that I have recieved it, it's always
been a sign of a compromised computer being abused :P I can't use it as a
marker though, because someone may set up a real one some day.

I can't really see what keeping the time right has to do with ident, but yes,
having the time right on all servers is essential. That's what ntpd is for
(and GPSClock if you can afford it).

Ted.