[aclug-L] Re: Using RBL on Email server

["Mike Barushok" <mike.barushok@xxxxxxxxx>]

For a time when I worked at KeyCreations this was one of my main tasks.

Operating email servers as an ISP, we only rejected connections via
RBL using the most conservative RBL's. We did later use a third party
to filter mail, in a way that the end user recipient could over ride.

One thing that may be a concern in your situation is that RBL's work
poorly when any MX accepting mail for your domain are not using the
same rules to reject connections. If you do not administer all the
MX's for a given domain, then don't even try it, the unintended
consequences may be annoying.

postmaster@ (and to a lesser extent abuse@, webmaster@, spam@)
addresses can be problematic with aggressive RBL filtering.
Theoretically, if a given domain ever is used for a source or
destination of mail, mail bounces, or warnings and errors, then
postmaster@ that domain should be capable of receiving mail without
regard to the source of the mail.

The best advice I can give is that aggressive RBL's cause more
problems than they solve, Mail filtering in general is hard to do
correctly.

Mike

On Jan 19, 2008 7:14 PM, Dale W Hodge <dwh@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> I know this is probably going to be a question that most of you can't
> answer, but has anyone else on the list tried using RBL's on their mail
> server?  If so, which have you liked and which do you not?
>
> For those wondering what I'm asking about, I'm referring to using
> Realtime Black Lists on my mail server to try and stem the tide of spam
> email. The concept is to reject the message at the gateway by consulting
> a list of known and/or potential spammer IP's rather than using
> filtering software to try to deal with the messages after they've been
> delivered. The problem as always is one of how much do you trust a list
> to be accurate. Using a conservative list has helped some, but now
> wondering which lists are more aggressive without being too aggressive.
>
> --Dale
>
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