Zenon Panoussis wrote:
> For weeks on end now I am being subjected to what I could call a reverse
> spam DDoS attack for lack of better term.

"joe job" is a better term:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joe_job

> Some asshole is sending out
> zillions of messages to non-existent users at legitimate domains, using
> clearly non-existent sender addresses @myhosteddomain. It seems he is
> specifically targetting backup MXs and spam filtering services because
> the messages are first accepted for transport, then bounced.

Yeah, spammers do that.

> The bounces
> create a storm of connections to my MX, which in turn causes courier
> (0.55.1) to choke and stop receiving mail at all.
>   
...
> So something somewhere gets saturated and simply stops working. This
> situation persists forever unless courier is restarted, so the effect
> is a full 100% denial of service to legitimate users. Increasing the
> number of daemons in authlib/authdaemonrc (tried 5, 10 and 20) doesn't
> change courier's behaviour. bofh says 'opt BOFHSUPPRESSBACKSCATTER=none'.
>   

You don't need more authdaemons, just more esmtpd processes.  Increase 
MAXDAEMONS, but not MAXPERC or MAXPERIP.

You might also try temporarily using an RBL that lists systems that 
backscatter:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Backscatter#Backscatter_of_email_spam
I've never used one, so I couldn't recommend one in particular, or tell 
you how likely you are to reject otherwise legitimate mail.  It will 
almost certainly be better than your current situation, though.


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