BMITU

Thu Sep 4 21:26:15 UTC 2003

At 02:35 PM 9/4/2003, Brad Knowles wrote:
  and most *nix platforms, look at Surgemail from http://www.netwinsite.com
>>  It is incredibly scalable and VERY fast.
>
>         Got any benchmarks?

We have tested all of them. We process several million messages per day for 
tellurian.com. The only server which doesn't die immediately or within 
30-60 minutes is Surgemail. All others are crippled by multi-threaded and 
multi-homed dictionary attacks very quickly. I am speaking only of Win32 
servers. That is what he asked for.

>>                                            It uses a spam assassin-like
>>  filter which is written in C so it is at least 20-100 times faster than
>>  spam assassin and 95% as effective.
>
>         Again, benchmarks, please.

Spam assassin could not handle the load and choked on the mail volume. We 
were only able to process 1-2 messages per second with spam assassin. (not 
running spamc/spamd since it doesn't work on Win32) We can now peak at 
50-100 messages per second without any problem. The ruleset is completely 
customizable and it includes a distributed razor-like checksuming spamtrap 
database. Even without Bayes capability, with thousands of messages per 
day, I only receive one or two false positves or false negatives per week.

>         In particular, I'd also like to see effectiveness benchmarks, 
> such as the ones recently reported at 
> <http://freshmeat.net/articles/view/964/>.  Here, SpamAssassin won as a 
> non-learning filter, but it also has a Bayesian/learning mode that would 
> allow it to perform as well as or better than any of the other learning 
> types.  Of course, they tested version 2.55 and 2.60 is already 
> available, so that would also make a difference.

Unfortunately, spam assassin is so effective and popular that spammers are 
using the rules to game SA now. We use a different ruleset than SA so we 
are less susceptible to forced false negatives.

>>                                       It includes support for AVAST
>>  anti-virus
>
>         Any other anti-virus solutions supported?  AMaViS and amavisd-new 
> support something like thirty different plug-in modules that you can use.

Sure. You can use any command line scanner. Norton, McAfee, RAV, 
whatever... We were using RAV until a week ago when we decided to switch to 
AVAST.

>>              and the webmail program is powerful, fast, and includes
>>  support for PGP.
>
>         Webmail is another aspect of the overall system.  Myself, I've 
> found that many webmail systems are too dependant on support for 
> javascript in the browser.  In particular, IMP/horde has a problem in 
> this area.  We found that TWIG was the best webmail application we could 
> find, although I've also heard good things about SquirrelMail. There are 
> many others also listed at 
> <http://directory.google.com/Top/Computers/Software/Internet/Clients/Mail/Web-Based/>.

It is a standard IMAP/POP/SMTP server so you can use any webmail you want. 
The one which is included is very fast and powerful. It includes almost any 
feature a full featured email client should have. View source, view 
headers, PGP, redirect, rules, anti-spam rules and exceptions.

>>                    It is an AWESOME product and the support and
>>  developers are top notch too. I don't have any vested interest in
>>  the company, but I am a very happy customer. (They also make DNews
>>  which many people here are probably familiar with)
>
>         DNews I am familiar with.  Not bad for what it is, but Diablo is 
> much more scalable.  It's also more difficult to manage, but the best-run 
> large news providers in the world that I know of are all using Diablo.

Many also use Cyclone and Typhoon too. I didn't say that DNews was the most 
scalable server, but that people would know the company by it. :) I haven't 
wasted my time or bandwidth running a news server for many years so I can't 
comment on news server scalability.

-Robert

Tellurian Networks - The Ultimate Internet Connection
http://www.tellurian.com | 888-TELLURIAN | 973-300-9211
"Good will, like a good name, is got by many actions, and lost by one." - 
Francis Jeffrey