whitelists

[Thomas Deaton <TD...@co.guilford.nc.us>]

Should local whitelists go into /etc/mail/spamassassin/local.cf 
or /etc/MailScanner/rules/spam.whitelist.rules
?
Is one more effective than the other?
 
thanks


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Thank you

Re: whitelists

[Martin Hepworth <ma...@solid-state-logic.com>]

Given this more of a MailScanner related query it should really be on 
the MailScanner users list.

But as I'm here...

It Depends.

If you use local.cf SA will run on messages to these users and may end 
up with bayes learning this as ham when in fact its spam

If you put it in spam.whitelist.rules (and have MailScanner.conf call 
this from "Is Definitely Not Spam" setting) then SA won't run for emails 
to that user (so you'll save CPU) and you won;t have any affect on the 
bayes DB etc.

--
Martin Hepworth
Snr Systems Administrator
Solid State Logic
Tel: +44 (0)1865 842300


Thomas Deaton wrote:
> Should local whitelists go into /etc/mail/spamassassin/local.cf
> or /etc/MailScanner/rules/spam.whitelist.rules
> ?
> Is one more effective than the other?
>  
> thanks
> 
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
> E-mail correspondence to and from this address may be subject to the
> North Carolina Public Records Law and may be disclosed to third parties 
> by an
> authorized county official. If you have received this communication in
> error , please do not distribute it. Please notify the sender by E-mail
> at the address shown and delete the original message.
> 
> Thank you
> 

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Re: whitelists

[Matt Kettler <mk...@evi-inc.com>]

Thomas Deaton wrote:
> Should local whitelists go into /etc/mail/spamassassin/local.cf
> or /etc/MailScanner/rules/spam.whitelist.rules
> ?
> Is one more effective than the other?

They operate differently, and in general the MailScanner level whitelist
(spam.whitelist.rules) is better than using SA's whitelists in local.cf.

However, beware that this file is a MailScanner file, and does not accept
SpamAssassin "whitelist_from" type syntax.

MailScanner's whitelist can also act on the relay IP.

SA's whitelists, while useful, are in general a little bit of a hack intended to
help those who can't do whitelisting at a higher layer. Tools above SA have
clear access to the message envelope, and tend to suffer less from the
ambiguities that SA suffers from when guessing at the envelope based on hints in
the message headers.