Thanks Scott, I was afraid when I saw no screenshots that the configuration on a host by host, user by user basis was via text files. You don't perhaps come from a unix background do you? :) Because straight text file configurations went away a long time ago. You've heard of the new Graphical User Interface and the web forms haven't you? They're cool things :)
I have literally 100s of domains and many hundreds of users. Each user is going to want to turn on or off spam control (I think I can probably handle configuring the weights based on an "all domain" weighting system, but I can't justify adding a product that might throw false positives and just imposing it on my users without their consent). Nor can I imagine tracking down 100's of users and asking each one and configuring a text file while logged into the server. I don't have that much non-billable domain administration time built into their contracts :) When you upgrade the product and add a practical way for users to turn on or off spam control themselves I'll be interested I think. Don't even much care if it costs more coming that way :) Software is cheap - labor is expensive. Lee Date: Mon, 29 Jul 2002 18:19:43 -0400 From: "R. Scott Perry" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Subject: Re: [IMail Forum] [IMail_Forum DIGEST] Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] >We're considering Declude Anti-spam Pro, but I have a few questions: > >1) What has your ACTUAL experience been installing it. I'm always >suspicious of companies that say their product takes "15 minutes or so" to >install. I'll answer some of the questions regarding features and such, while hopefully others will comment about their experiences. Note that although Declude JunkMail can usually be installed in a matter of minutes, if you want the optimal results (highest amount of spam caught with minimal, if any, false positives), you will likely want to take some time learning about the various spam tests. This can take as much time as you would like to throw at it. :) >what did it take to subscribe to RBL/MAPS etc.? Note that most of our customers do not use RBL/MAPS (which requires a subscription), most of our customers use the free spam tests (with the exception being Message Sniffer ( http://www.sortmonster.com ), which many of our customers subscribe to). >What is the interface for the configuration? Text files? web pages? >executable? Text files, which allows for easy scripting if desired. >2) It says it "allows you to manage spam control on a user by user basis". >My question is - how? This is also handled by text files. >Must I use the on-host management agent that comes with Imail? No, Declude doesn't use the IMail Administrator. >Or can I manage it through the web interface, the same as most >other server parameters? Unfortunately, IMail's web messaging doesn't have any hooks into it. However, some of our customers use scripting to allow their customers to customize their spam settings. >3) It says it doesn't really affect performance, and I believe that, but do >the extra checks it does signficantly affect bandwidth, or message delivery >or receipt times? You will see a short delay in message delivery, which will depend mostly on two factors: Which spam tests you run, and how often you receive mail from a given server. For E-mails from servers that you frequently receive mail from (where spam test results will be cached), a delay of just a second or less is common. For E-mails from servers that you do not frequently receive mail from, there may be a longer delay (up to about a minute in a worst-case scenario, if the DNS servers for a spam test are not reachable or extremely slow). >4) Can you see the declude service in the services list in imail, or is >there some other way to monitor whether it has crashed/is still up? Declude has built-in exception handling. Given the IMail architecture (Declude is not run as a service), it can't "go down", and it has a number of failsafes to ensure message delivery even in the event of a crash. If Declude does crash, it saves some information about the crash (which can then be sent to us to determine the cause of the crash), and then gracefully exits. The next E-mail that is received will be scanned as if nothing happened. If Declude JunkMail does crash, the E-mail will be delivered as if it passed all the spam tests. With all my talking about crashing, hopefully others will comment on their experience, so you don't think it is a common occurrence. :) Again, I hope I answered some of the technical questions (feel free to E-mail me for further details), while leaving comments about opinions/experiences for others to share. -Scott --- Declude: Anti-virus, Anti-spam and Anti-hijacking solutions for IMail. http://www.declude.com --- [This E-mail was scanned for viruses by Declude Virus (http://www.declude.com)] Please visit http://www.ipswitch.com/support/mailing-lists.html to be removed from this list. An Archive of this list is available at: http://www.mail-archive.com/imail_forum%40list.ipswitch.com/ Please visit the Knowledge Base for answers to frequently asked questions: http://www.ipswitch.com/support/IMail/
