What amazes me is that, even though I see some attemps at relaying on my server, all of them are failing (I am pretty sure - I only see the transmit denials and no successes in the transfer logs). Still, some of the same sources keep trying over and over. Don't they detect when it has not worked? I need a policy for complaining to their ISPs. To date we have just ignored them.
BTW, exim is pretty good at dealing with the relay problem. I prefer it as it is easier to configure than sendmail, yet it recognizes the same command line options. It can be a drop-in replacement for sendmail. Just a happy user here. On Fri, 3 May 2002 05:50:24 -0500 "David A. Bandel" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > On Fri, 3 May 2002 01:00:38 -0400 > begin Joel Hammer <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> spewed forth: > > > There was an article in the Wall Street Journal today about the problems > > posed to small businesses by spammers. Basically, the spammer hijacks > > the mail server or just sends large amount of mail to the business > > everyday. > > > > Is this a special problem just for silly people? I have a mail server > > going and, except for my early days on linux, have never been exploited > > in this way, even thought I am on line 24/7. So, is this just a problem > > of people who don't know what they are doing? > > The most popular mail transport agent (MTA, also known as a mail server), > is sendmail. Until sendmail version 8.9.x, the default configuration was > to relay mail, no questions asked. While today we are at sendmail 8.12.3 > (sendmail 8.9.x was released years ago), many old installations have never > been upgraded and still have this problem (among others, like security > holes big enough to fly 747's through, but that's another story). > > Many other MTAs suffered the same problems. Most have been patched. But > all can be easily reconfigured to relay mail from anyone who cares to use > it, with no brakes on the system (max # of recipients, max # of messages > you can send at one time, etc.). Combine the above with know "exploders" > (a mail address that is nothing more than an alias for thousands of other > mail addresses), and the problem is tremendous. > > Current estimates place the # of spam messages on the Internet at any > given time at 20% of the e-mail messages on the Internet. SPAM has been > known to bring even BIG mail servers down. > > That answer the question? > > David A. Bandel > -- > Focus on the dream, not the competition. > -- Nemesis Racing Team motto > _______________________________________________ > Linux-users mailing list - > http://linux-sxs.org/mailman/listinfo/linux-users > Subscribe/Unsubscribe info, Archives,and Digests are located at the above > URL. -- +============================+===============================+ | Roger Oberholtzer | E-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] | | OPQ Systems AB | WWW: http://www.opq.se/ | | Erik Dahlbergsgatan 41-43 | Phone: Int + 46 8 314223 | | 115 32 Stockholm | Mobile: Int + 46 733 621657 | | Sweden | Fax: Int + 46 8 302602 | +============================+===============================+ _______________________________________________ Linux-users mailing list - http://linux-sxs.org/mailman/listinfo/linux-users Subscribe/Unsubscribe info, Archives,and Digests are located at the above URL.
