Re: [cobalt-users] reconfig sendmail voids warranty?

[Parker Morse <morse@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

On Tuesday, October 8, 2002, at 06:02  PM, Dana S. Millaway wrote:
> Pardon the newbie here but I have been searching for ways to kill the
> incoming spam.  When I searched the archives for this list, I found the
> following dialogue:
> __________________________________________________
> [cobalt-users] Spam and AV protection
> Parker Morse cobalt-users@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
>  <mailto:cobalt-users%40list.cobalt.com>
> Tue Dec 11 07:18:39 2001
[snip]
> Several of us. I'm using ORBZ on our Qube3, and set it up using Charlie
> Summers' extensively detailed instructions for voiding your software
> warranty by reconfiguring sendmail. :-) Search the list archives for
> "sendmail configuration using m4 on a Cobalt RaQ3 (long)" which was the
> subject of Charlie's original message on the subject.
>
> I've got a cron job running which emails a daily count of bounced mail;
> I'm
> stopping anywhere from 40 to 100 per day, and we're a pretty small
> site.

[snip]

> What I would like to know is whether Mr. Morse was being facetious
> about the warranty and if there is a spam filter / blocker product with
> a web-based interface for installation and configuration.  I am not

Dana - I was being flip, yes, but not entirely facetious. Mucking around 
with the sendmail configuration files will NOT void your hardware 
warrantee (if smoke starts rising from your Qube3, Sun will presumably 
still try to fix it). However, if you stop getting mail, Sun's not going 
to offer you support on the email software, since your Qube is no longer 
in the same shape they shipped it in.

I've adapted Charlie's instructions for our Qube3 at 
<http://bluebird.sinauer.com/~morse/cobalt/>. The process includes backing 
up files at every step of the way, so it's generally easy to "roll back" 
the changes if needed. However, it's not a simple change if you're not 
comfortable with the command line or with unix text editors, and I'm 
unaware of RBL alternatives.

If there is a web-based interface, I'd be interested in hearing about it 
so I can link to it.

You may be able to use Steve Bassi's Mailscanner .pkg in conjunction with 
Spamassassin, but while Mailscanner is a .pkg you could hypothetically 
install through BlueLinQ, Spamassassin is unfortunately not a trivial 
installation; there have been several threads on this list (which you saw,
 no doubt, in your search) about getting it properly installed on 
different Cobalts.

So if you're looking for something soon, you may want to pay someone to do 
the install; I'm sure there are people on the list who'd do it for you and 
may have already contacted you off-list. :-)

FWIW, since I posted that original message nearly a year ago, our spam 
count has gone up significantly - I'm averaging in the high 400s over the 
last few weeks. :-( See <http://bluebird.sinauer.com/~morse/spam_chart.htm>
 for the sorry story.

pjm