Hi Matt: I also plan to take a wait and see approach before deciding which software will replace Imail.
CH will offer a standalone gateway product, which is neat - but it doesn't address the need to have to find a new POP/IMAP/HTTPmail server at some point in the future. If CH will eventually recommend another Windows mail server package that they will integrate with, I would give this a very serious consideration. Generally, I'm not in panic. I am comfortable that there are packaged solutions out there that sound like they'll do the job. I would definitely miss Declude. However, this time I will not rule out the possibility that I will actually learn Linux. Best Regards Andy Schmidt H&M Systems Software, Inc. 600 East Crescent Avenue, Suite 203 Upper Saddle River, NJ 07458-1846 Phone: +1 201 934-3414 x20 (Business) Fax: +1 201 934-9206 http://www.HM-Software.com/ -----Original Message----- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Matt Sent: Tuesday, October 26, 2004 02:25 PM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: [Declude.JunkMail] MS SMTP Andy, Let me add my 2 cents about MS SMTP and expose some of my thought process on related things. We also use ORF, but only for address validation during the SMTP connection, although we could also selectively blacklist with it if we wanted to, and probably would sometime in the future. What concerns me with MS SMTP is how to handle "HOLD" E-mail. MS uses a system with encoded files, two of them in fact, that represent what is effectively our Q* file in IMail containing all of the recipient and Mail From information. The event sync doesn't require reading these files since the data is shared with the app without needing to read the files directly (as far as I can tell), but if you place these files in hold somewhere, it would be difficult to read them. This might also cause some issues with external applications that might make use of the Q* files to read the recipient information, which is something that I have personally been working on since it is impracticable to pass this information to an external application by way of a command line argument being that some of it is too long for that (multiple recipients). So it would appear that without the ability to access a Q* type of data element, an external app would have some difficulty. Declude could however create this file on the fly and then destroy it. So when a message is 'held' in MS SMTP, you seemingly lose the original recipient information, and this is critical to our system for reprocessing blocked messages. This seems to set up a situation where every blocked message would need to be redirected to a different mail server, where you might configure a separate capture routine necessary for handling held messages, but it would seem that MS SMTP would only be capable of actions like SUBJECT, HEADERS, BOUNCE and DELETE, with BLOCK being done in some cases before the message is received like ORF can do on envelope information. What ORF has done is definitely very nice albeit very limited at the moment. The fact that they can take action based on blacklists and recipient information before the data is even sent is wonderful since you could tarball and drop connections for obvious spam without hardly any processing power, and then you could virus scan and filter whatever might be left over saving a ton of overhead in a system. I only worry about how to integrate some sort of HOLD or COPYFILE capability, though I'm not concerned if that needs to be done on a separate mail system. Personally, I have no interest in a "Declude mail server". I don't expect a few programmers to be able to program an entire mail server effectively, and that would be limiting to their customer base. What is really needed is a Declude plug-in to an MTA that may or may not be your mail server as well. MS SMTP and Postfix are the two most obvious candidates. I thought they would steer clear of Postfix being that people that choose it have the option of installing Spam Assassin for free, and we are certainly considering that ourselves, even before the Ipswitch developments. I wouldn't mind leveraging my Windows knowledge with MS SMTP where commercial software is king, and I am comfortable enough with Declude to give that a shot should it come. I am very worried about what is to come regardless. As you have seen, even companies like Ipswitch can turn around and pull the rug right out from under you, and despite almost 6 months of hints about another platform, Declude won't even tell us what platforms they are targeting, and straight answers are harder to come by these days (such as resolving clear and obvious issues with vulnerabilities). The Ipswitch move makes my aversion to these things grow. By in large I like Declude's functionality, but I can't afford having too many more liabilities like Ipswitch, in fact it is going to be hard to stomach the Ipswitch liability after I just dumped a ton of money into servers and a ton of development time into my filtering and external applications. My overall investment in my mail services is about $15,000 and thousands of man hours, and I needed more time for that to pay off, but now it will cost me more and further development in the current platform will be at least to some extent wasted. That's very unfortunate considering that I haven't even had a 'hard launch' of my service as yet due to delays in upgrading my capacity. I don't want to make any brash decisions, so I am going to give it some time before I write anything in stone. I may choose to move my mail hosting first since that isn't necessarily tied to the spam and virus blocking. This also means buying yet another server, something that I am not at all happy about. If I buy another server, I can almost guarantee that it will be linux. I'm sick of being burned by companies in the pursuit of higher profits over honor. Matt Andy Schmidt wrote: >Correct - ORF is using various event sinks to do REAL connection time >checks >(!) as well as content checking AFTER message receipt >(http://www.vamsoft.com/orf/). > >I'd love to see Declude and Sniffer ported to that environment... > >But, I agree - I would also go for a "sendmail" port for Windows. I >rather pay CH for a "dumb" mail server that "drives" Declude and >Sniffer - than pay Ipswitch to repurchase 8.13 with a bundle of >"solutions" for which I have no need. > >I see no harm in staying with Imail for another year, while CH comes up >with something "more focused" to the actual task. > >Best Regards >Andy Schmidt > >H&M Systems Software, Inc. >600 East Crescent Avenue, Suite 203 >Upper Saddle River, NJ 07458-1846 > >Phone: +1 201 934-3414 x20 (Business) >Fax: +1 201 934-9206 > >http://www.HM-Software.com/ > > >-----Original Message----- >From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] >[mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of John >Tolmachoff >(Lists) >Sent: Tuesday, October 26, 2004 09:32 AM >To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] >Subject: RE: [Declude.JunkMail] MS SMTP > > >MS SMTP has what is called Event Sink hook, where a hook can be >registered and therefore called when a message is received. > >John Tolmachoff >Engineer/Consultant/Owner >eServices For You > >--- >[This E-mail was scanned for viruses by Declude Virus >(http://www.declude.com)] > >--- >This E-mail came from the Declude.JunkMail mailing list. To >unsubscribe, just send an E-mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED], and type >"unsubscribe Declude.JunkMail". The archives can be found at >http://www.mail-archive.com. > > > > -- ===================================================== MailPure custom filters for Declude JunkMail Pro. http://www.mailpure.com/software/ ===================================================== --- [This E-mail was scanned for viruses by Declude Virus (http://www.declude.com)] --- This E-mail came from the Declude.JunkMail mailing list. To unsubscribe, just send an E-mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED], and type "unsubscribe Declude.JunkMail". The archives can be found at http://www.mail-archive.com. --- [This E-mail was scanned for viruses by Declude Virus (http://www.declude.com)] --- This E-mail came from the Declude.JunkMail mailing list. To unsubscribe, just send an E-mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED], and type "unsubscribe Declude.JunkMail". The archives can be found at http://www.mail-archive.com.
