>BTW, some people with anti-virus programs to sell for iMail don't want me >to tell you this, but the standard Symantec Anti-Virus Corporate Edition >client (or their server Anti-Virus "client") works fine to kill viruses on >the iMail server because ** every incoming email gets converted to a file >** by iMail. The client just has to be set to scan ALL files, and to >clean, (and if clean fails) then quarantine infected files.
That's like saying "Don't buy a car; buy a bicycle! It can go anywhere a car can go, and more!". :)
Specifically, your trick should work in cases where E-mails that are downloaded via web messaging (where IMail will decode the attachments before they are downloaded). But, it will not work for E-mails downloaded via POP3 or IMAP (since IMail doesn't decode them).
Worse, if an on-access virus scanner happens to a virus in an .mbx file, it will typically delete the entire .mbx file -- potentially deleting hundreds or thousands of legitimate E-mails with it. That's a very big risk to be taking.
And, other issues include very slow responses from the server, and confusion over completely blank E-mails.
There is a reason why there is a market for mailserver virus scanners. <G>
-Scott
Re: the .mbx file - you are 100% correct. Or course, that's only if the virus isn't caught at the file level before it's incorporated into the .mbx, and the .mbx is subsequently scanned after the virus definitions are updated. It happens only Very rarely these days but yes, I'll concede it DOES happen.
Can't this happen with other mailserver virus scanners (in fact, I've seen it happen!). To be an improvement, a dedicated anti-virus solution has to have a way to deal with the **infected part** of the .mbx. If it can't, the .mbx does has to be quarantined or deleted, no?
In practice, what I'm doing is working pretty well.
Slow responses have not proven to be a problem of any kind.
-Paul
To Unsubscribe: http://www.ipswitch.com/support/mailing-lists.html List Archive: http://www.mail-archive.com/imail_forum%40list.ipswitch.com/ Knowledge Base/FAQ: http://www.ipswitch.com/support/IMail/
