My server seems to be receiving a lot of junk email.

It tries to bounce email thats addressed to users unknown, But these seem to just pile up in the mqueue..

How can I effectivly reduce the load of incomming mail that I get? What is some tips that other people have done to lower the load of the mail server?

I run ensim pro. fyi

have you tried to use ordb and spamcop and whatnot to block open relays from sending you mail?

i just use MailScanner... but I assume that only checks for viruses and spam for already delivered mail... are these compatable with MailScanner?

yes.. its just a config edit.

1. Backup your existing sendmail.cf file
cp /etc/sendmail.cf /etc/sendmail.cf.old
2. Go to your Ensim mail configuration directory
cd /usr/lib/opcenter/sendmail/install/
3. Backup your existing sendmail.mc file
cp sendmail.mc sendmail.mc.working
4. Edit the sendmail.mc file with Pico.
pico sendmail.mc
5. Add the following lines at the end of the features section. Make sure none of the files wrap to the next line.
FEATURE(`dnsbl', `relays.ordb.org', `Rejected - see http://ordb.org/')dnl
FEATURE(dnsbl, `bl.spamcop.net', `"Spam blocked see: http://spamcop.net/bl.shtml?" $&{client_addr}')dnl
6. Rebuild the sendmail.cf file
m4 sendmail.mc > /etc/sendmail.cf
7. Restart sendmail
/etc/init.d/sendmail restart


that should help

Hrm.. that was painless. Thanks! Other people was telling me about blocking tons and tons of ip blocks, but I didnt think that it was such a good idea. I hope this helps, as the main factor towards the increasing load average on my server is from sendmail/clamav/mailscanner

Second thought on restart this is what I get:

[root@solace install]# service MailScanner restart
Shutting down MailScanner daemons:
MailScanner: [ OK ]
incoming sendmail: [ OK ]
outgoing sendmail: [ OK ]
Starting MailScanner daemons:
incoming sendmail: 554 5.0.0 /etc/sendmail.cf: line 174: readcf: map popauth: class bl not available
[ OK ]
outgoing sendmail: /etc/sendmail.cf: line 174: readcf: map popauth: class bl not available
[ OK ]
MailScanner: [ OK ]

Line 174 is:
Kpopauth bl.spamcop.net

did you do all the steps?

yes, exactly like noted/

I noticed the quotation is not exactly the same on the two lines I am supposed to add.. does this matter?

odd i used this thread and it worked fine...

http://forum.ev1servers.net/showthread.php...&highlight=ordb

To fix the problem with "outgoing sendmail: /etc/sendmail.cf: line 174: readcf: map popauth: class bl not available":

Modify /etc/mail/sendmail.cf and go to line 174. Replace the bad Kpopauth line with:

Kpopauth hash -a -o /etc/mail/popip

Then restart sendmail: service sendmail restart

What a percent of spam can be blocked with these modifications of sendmail configuration? I did all what was written above, restarted sendmail, but I don't see any decrease in spam volum. Any suggestions? (I don't use MailScanner or other spam blocking software).

I checked mail logs and see that some emails really have been blocked with the help of spamcop. Simply I expected that this measure would be more effective against spam.

By the way, I got rid of about 80% of spam simply by adding the following two lines in the sendmail.mc (in addition to the lines mentioned above):

FEATURE(`dnsbl', `sbl.spamhaus.org', `"Spam rejected " $&{client_addr} " - see http://www.spamhaus.org/SBL/"')dnl
FEATURE(`dnsbl', `cbl.abuseat.org', `"Spam rejected " $&{client_addr} " - see http://cbl.abuseat.org"')dnl


Of course, possibly one can get rid of 98% of spam using even more spam blocking servers (which are more restrictive), but then the probability of blocking "innocent" email will be greatly increased.

Read this:

http://atopqualitysite.com/reducespam.htm


H3ll yeah brother, that gets rid of some spam.