[TriLUG] mailing list server filtering setup questions

[Matt Pusateri]

Cristóbal Palmer wrote:
> Greetings LUGers. I seek your collective wisdom.
>
> I have a mailing list server with 588 lists on it that handled 860
> incoming posts yesterday. Spamassassin is NOT running on this machine,
> and we do not plan to add it. We need some filtering, though. To that
> end, I'm trying to spec out a spam filtering server to go in front of
> it. Current thinking is to have the filtering box running Fedora and
> performing the following functions:
>
> postfix + greylisting
> spamassassin
> virus scanning (?)
>
> The plan also has us changing this:
>
> lists.example.org.       IN       MX       10 lists.example.org.
>
> to:
>
> lists.example.org.       IN       MX       5 list-filtering.example.org.
> lists.example.org.       IN       MX       10 lists.example.org.
>
> I'm wanting feedback in three major areas:
>
> (1) Is the overarching plan sound? Is there a better way to go about
> this? Is there a major element I've left out?
> (2) What are reasonable hardware specs for the filtering box? I've got
> a 1.4GHz pIII 1U server with 2GB of RAM at my disposal. If that won't
> do, suggestions on how to revamp my plan to be able to use the 1U just
> mentioned are most welcome.
> (3) How do I build a good test system for the filtering box? Any other
> deployment tips? Anybody on the list *done* something like this
> before?
>
> Before you ask: No, we don't have money to buy anything. My labor is
> essentially all I can add to this project. Viable alternatives to
> Fedora include... maybe CentOS, and that's about it. Any system that
> goes in place MUST fail back to the original state of just having the
> working list server with no filtering.
>
> Cheers,
>   
There was a project called maRBL(orangegrove.net, but the site is messed 
up), that used P0F to passively OS fingerprint and then if it was 
windows, it will fire off against the RBL lists.  This runs well on two 
sites I run with Postfix, amavisd-new, clamav, spamassassin, and postgrey.

Matt P.