White/Black list limits in MSFE

Discuss the ConfigServer MailScanner Front-End script
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BurakUeda
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White/Black list limits in MSFE

Post by BurakUeda »

How many lines I can put each max? Is there any estimated value that will cause high load? For example in a server with this specs:
2 x Intel Xeon 3.0 HT (4x3Ghz)
2 GB memory (upgradable)

Currently both black/white lists are almost empty.
server has few websites with very low to no HTTP/SQL usage. but has about 8000~9000 email accounts, and 90+ domains. 30~40K emails processed daily and server load barely reaches 1.0 maximum (except cpanel updates).

Any ideas?

Thanks.
Sarah
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Joined: 09 Dec 2006, 22:49

Post by Sarah »

There's no inbuilt limit to the number of entries in the spam.whitelist.rules and spam.blacklist.rules files. However, bear in mind that the whole blacklist and whitelist will be loaded into memory with each MailScanner process, thus increasing the footprint of each MS process, and every mail must be filtered against each entry. This takes up memory and CPU, slows down the processing of mail, and could easily impact server performance.

Whitelisting and blacklisting should not be done on a blanket basis. It's not necessary. It's not like boxtrapper where a sender has to be on the list in order for their mail to get through to you.

You should only put an email address or domain on the blacklist or whitelist after you have tried other solutions such as raising or lowering spam score thresholds, modifying the scores for relevant SA tests, training your bayes database, etc.

Regards,
Sarah
BurakUeda
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Posts: 26
Joined: 14 Jan 2007, 14:26
Location: Japan
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Post by BurakUeda »

Thanks Sarah.
I am an email provider, and I am planning to give my customers to make their own black and whitelists. Of course, this will be made at email-account-level, (not domain-level as cPanel provides).

I am asking questions here and there, but couldn't find any answers like:
There is a pretty folder named: /etc/vfilters. There, you can set some Exim filters for each domain. So If I set some filters in those folders, are those filters will be read only when an email arrives to that particular domain? Because it will considerably reduce the cpu usage.

Or is there a similar option in Mailscanner? Because the format of the B/W list filter is so darn simple comparing the Exim filters:
To: local@email.cc and From: incoming@email.com yes
Any way to make the Mailscanner to read a particular filter file for a domain ONLY when email received for one of the accounts for that domain?
Sarah
Moderator
Posts: 921
Joined: 09 Dec 2006, 22:49

Post by Sarah »

BurakUeda wrote:Thanks Sarah.
I am an email provider, and I am planning to give my customers to make their own black and whitelists. Of course, this will be made at email-account-level, (not domain-level as cPanel provides).

I am asking questions here and there, but couldn't find any answers like:
There is a pretty folder named: /etc/vfilters. There, you can set some Exim filters for each domain. So If I set some filters in those folders, are those filters will be read only when an email arrives to that particular domain? Because it will considerably reduce the cpu usage.

Or is there a similar option in Mailscanner? Because the format of the B/W list filter is so darn simple comparing the Exim filters:
To: local@email.cc and From: incoming@email.com yes
Any way to make the Mailscanner to read a particular filter file for a domain ONLY when email received for one of the accounts for that domain?
You cannot give email account users their own blacklists/whitelists in the MailScanner front-end - it is grouped by cPanel account, whether that account includes one domain or multiple domains. You can manually edit the MailScanner spam whitelist and blacklist rules files to include rules for individual users, but this would obviously be very time-consuming and inefficient.

It is not possible to have mailscanner read a rule file only when email is received for a specific domain. MailScanner reads all the rules files and configuration files for each MS process and then scans multiple mails per batch.

Regards,
Sarah
BurakUeda
Junior Member
Posts: 26
Joined: 14 Jan 2007, 14:26
Location: Japan
Contact:

Post by BurakUeda »

Thanks Sarah.

I already have an end-user script that will edit MS white-list.
Also I decided to allow my users to create only white-list, because most probably spammers won't use same "From:" address, so having a black-list is pretty much useless.

I think my server can handle few thousands white-list lines...
chrissoumil
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Joined: 15 May 2008, 07:00

email black listed..help me

Post by chrissoumil »

I got email blacklisted.can any one help me in this regard.
thank you
BurakUeda
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Posts: 26
Joined: 14 Jan 2007, 14:26
Location: Japan
Contact:

Post by BurakUeda »

chrissoumil wrote:I got email blacklisted.can any one help me in this regard.
thank you
What is your blacklisted IP?
Sarah
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Posts: 921
Joined: 09 Dec 2006, 22:49

Post by Sarah »

chrissoumil wrote:I got email blacklisted.can any one help me in this regard.
thank you
Generally the blacklist you have been listed on will provide a link where you can find information on why your IP address was blacklisted and what to do about it.
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