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email sucks (77 comments)
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email sucks

in Housekeeping by phillip

Wednesday, November 26, 2003 - 02:26 PM

I've had it.

We have, until now, handled our own email. We've been running qmail, and it has been good. We've used SpamAssassin to try and filter out some of the multiple hundreds of Spams that we each get each day, and it has been good. We've been running it on a four year old RaQ2, and it has not been good. Simply put, the machine is underpowered for the load we need to put on it, mostly for the spam processing. Spam will now officially start costing us money.

I'm not an email guy, and I have no desire to learn anything more about qmail, sendmail, SMTP, POP, IMAP, various Spam processing tools and their nice esoteric configurations. As this machine has slowly ground itself into dust, I've wasted far too many hours trying to tweak configurations to get it to continue to function. As of today, we have no email server. The machine thinks it's receiving a SYN flood, and won't handle any incoming SMTP connections. I'm at the point where I want an SEP field around all of this. So this is a question for all of you.

I want to find reasonably priced solution to handle all our email needs. These include, but are not limited to:

  • Spam Processing: a must have. we get too much not to have it. Configurability on my end for how to deal with it is a plus.
  • Multiple Domains: preferably with different email addresses per domain, but if we can't do that, we'll deal.
  • POP access: I like to be able to download my email for local storage. It prevents a lot of storage issues, and I feel like I control it then.
  • IMAP/Web access: We don't have this now, but if we're hosting it elsewhere, it's a nice plus.
  • Forwards: we have a lot of addresses (orders, tips, etc.) that go to both of us, we need to keep it set up that way. We also have some addresses that need to get forwarded to other folks, so this is a must.
There's probably more, but I have no email access right now, so this is a minimum set to consider. If I think of more, I'll post them in the comments. If you have thoughts/recommendations/insults post them there too. You could email them to me, but I won't get it then.

I'm hoping we can get the machine hobbling along again later, as a lot of the site functionality that depends on email (including the contact area) is currently broken as well, but for now use the forums.

thanks.

Lonely Goatherd
Lonely Goatherd
Re: email sucks (Score: 0)
posted Wednesday, November 26, 2003 - 02:32 PM (#10959)
I use mailshell (www.mailshell.com). It costs $ but it works pretty darn good...
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zamphir
zamphir
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Posts: 5021

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Re: email sucks (Score: 2)
posted Wednesday, November 26, 2003 - 02:41 PM (#10960)
Buy a $300 pc from Walmart, and get something from these guys [gordano.com].

I've had a good experience with their products in a business environment, getting excellent performance on a 400mhz P2. And that was three versions ago.

I'm not running them for my home stuff, but that's because of computer snobbery, not because of anything about their products.
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Ain't nobody here but us turkeys [youtube.com]
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zamphir
zamphir
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Re: email sucks (Score: 2)
posted Wednesday, November 26, 2003 - 02:51 PM (#10961)
In Response to zamphir (#10960):

Also, I was gonna donate some money through PayPal, but I can't find the link.

Is this one of the things that broke?
--
Ain't nobody here but us turkeys [youtube.com]
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phillip
phillip
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Re: email sucks (Score: 2)
posted Wednesday, November 26, 2003 - 02:56 PM (#10962)
In Response to zamphir (#10960):

just for 50 accounts, it costs $835,and I still have to deal with keeping YA-machine up / running / current,etc. And that's just for the email,not including spam filtering, etc.

I really want to not deal with this anymore, and just find someone that we can pay a monthly fee to handle email.

--
Work is the curse of the drinking classes.
-Oscar Wilde
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phillip
phillip
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Re: email sucks (Score: 2)
posted Wednesday, November 26, 2003 - 03:42 PM (#10963)
ok.

email is still down, but I changed the perl module that we use to send email from the servers to use the local sendmail on themselves. So email should be going out again for registrations, notifications, etc.

Now if I want to send email, I can do so through a perl script, but I still can't receive email, and Jon is still entirely SOL. Preemies should get their nightly emails, so they can stop worrying. :)

ugh.

--
Work is the curse of the drinking classes.
-Oscar Wilde
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Duff
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I use SpamCOP (Score: 1)
posted Wednesday, November 26, 2003 - 04:23 PM (#10965)
...aka cesmail.net.

Not sure if they have quite all the services you're looking for, but they're pretty effective at spam filtering (roughly, SpamAssassin plus their own homebrewed open relay blacklist and a little more black magic -- though that last one has caused me to lose legitimate messages sent from folks with hotmail accounts into the spam folder on occasion).

They also have some scriptage that goes through the headers of your spam and writes up automated complaints to the ISPs of the spammers -- probably worth the purchase price right there.
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Lonely Goatherd
Lonely Goatherd
Re: email sucks (Score: 0)
posted Wednesday, November 26, 2003 - 06:16 PM (#10969)
The more I deal with this situation as a sysadmin, the more I come to the conclusion that solving the spam problem at the server doesn't work. Between all the different ways that spam mutates, the load it places on the server to scan it, and the fact that some commercial e-mail is actually legitimate and solicited, it just doesn't work.

E-mail clients with trainable spam filters are the way to go, IMO. Mozilla Mail, Eudora, Mac OS X's Mail.app, and a number of other clients have this built in. There are also some add-ons that basically mimic a server, sitting as a proxy on your client machine, and do the same thing and have the same trainability.

The real answer, of course, involves violations of the Geneva Convention...

Uncle Mikey
Sysadmin, Itasca.net
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jon
jon
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Re: email sucks (Score: 2)
posted Wednesday, November 26, 2003 - 06:17 PM (#10970)
In Response to zamphir (#10961):

The link is on all of the archive pages.

It is also here [paypal.com].
--
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normiep
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If its just the load... (Score: 1)
posted Wednesday, November 26, 2003 - 06:50 PM (#10973)
If its just load that's causing you the problem, you could probably coble togethor another machine for well under $500 and run spamd (the spamassassin daemon) and invoke spamc instead of spamassassin on the RaQ2. This should offload most of the overhead of running spamassassin on the spam you've been getting.

Given that the cost of solid email hosting over a year would be more than building the machine (which should last much more than a year) it would probably be cheaper to go with the second box.

See if you can borrow someone's machine to give it a try on first.
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jon
jon
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Re: If its just the load... (Score: 2)
posted Wednesday, November 26, 2003 - 07:07 PM (#10974)
In Response to normiep (#10973):

Yes, but that still involves us having to spend time dealing with the inevitable problems that crop up. We want someone else to deal with problems from now on. Problems suck.
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"I don't wanna be an inventor. I wanna be something useful like a teacher's aide or a prison guard or a science-fiction cartoon writer." - Cubert Farnsworth
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zamphir
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Re: email sucks (Score: 2)
posted Wednesday, November 26, 2003 - 07:50 PM (#10977)
In Response to jon (#10970):

Archive page? Why would I want to look there?

Thanks. Money donated.
--
Ain't nobody here but us turkeys [youtube.com]
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Lonely Goatherd
Lonely Goatherd
Re: email sucks (Score: 0)
posted Wednesday, November 26, 2003 - 07:57 PM (#10978)
http://rootr.net . $9 a month , I spend more than that on gum.
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devphil
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Re: email sucks (Score: 1)
posted Wednesday, November 26, 2003 - 09:04 PM (#10979)
In Response to phillip (#10963):

Actually, the setup you were using (qmail and whatnot) is a pretty good one. Just get a newer box of hardware to run it all on; the suggestion of a WlMart PC isn't a bad one. The suggestion of running spamd+spamc instead of spamassassin directly is also a good one (the former is server/client form of SA, the latter is just the one-shot command line version of SA).

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unFalln
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Re: email sucks (Score: 3, Insightful)
posted Wednesday, November 26, 2003 - 10:07 PM (#10982)
In Response to devphil (#10979):

Well thankyou for telling everyone that they have good ideas. Now all you need to do is come up with an idea of your own and everyone can return the favour and tell you you have a good idea. Then everyone can be happy that their ideas are good.

The reason Phillip was asking this question is because he doesn't like the maintenance/admin hungry system he has at the moment, and wants to change it (to something similar to this [goats.com]). The fact that the system crashed is a mere straw on the camels back.


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phillip
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Re: email sucks (Score: 2)
posted Wednesday, November 26, 2003 - 10:52 PM (#10984)
In Response to unFalln (#10982):

indeed,though I probably wouldn't have phrased it that way.

1. We are/were already running spamc/d. However, when the crappy processor on the box still takes 8 seconds to process spam,the inadequate memory fills up quickly.

2. unFalln has it right. I've wasted too much time with this machine,and I have no desire to be a mail administrator. I just want somewhere that we can host a few domains, 10-20 email accounts, and a bunch of forwarding accounts. I don't want to maintain a server,I don't want to have to watch for linux/qmail/SpamAssassin/whatever upgrades. Been there, done that.

Keep suggestions coming, though. Especially any that are good for (surprisingly) small businesses, instead of just individuals.

--
Work is the curse of the drinking classes.
-Oscar Wilde
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Lonely Goatherd
Lonely Goatherd
Re: email sucks (Score: 0)
posted Wednesday, November 26, 2003 - 10:59 PM (#10985)
You guys Emailed me a while back and complained that it was really hard to get through to me. That was my spam filter in action - it's a "challenge-response" system. If you're interested in blocking a lot of spam, and you don't mind that kind of hurdle placed in front of people who Email you, then check out Matador (http://www.mailfrontier.com/).
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sak8
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Re: email sucks (Score: 1)
posted Thursday, November 27, 2003 - 10:26 AM (#10994)
I do this kind of stuff at work (Unix Admin at a university), and it's not that bad. Once you get it working right that is. After that it's generally pretty smooth sailing, as long as you have decent hardware and software (so, no sendmail).

To me, e-mail is too important to be outsourcing it across the country. I'd think you'd be better off paying some fool in small bills (not unlike myself) and hosting it as you are now than putting it off elsewhere.
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Lonely Goatherd
Lonely Goatherd
Re: email sucks (Score: 0)
posted Thursday, November 27, 2003 - 12:41 PM (#10995)
In Response to phillip (#10984):


Caveat lector: I work for DSVR :)

Our virtual private servers [dsvr.co.uk] and TrustedMail product [dsvr.co.uk] match exactly what you're after.
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sak8
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Re: email sucks (Score: 1)
posted Thursday, November 27, 2003 - 06:08 PM (#11003)
In Response to sak8 (#10994):

Maybe I should have been more explicit. You can pay me to do the mail and server administration for you, and either co-lo the server near me or with you so that there's no issue of "whoops, we went out of business and took all of your e-mail with us" (and the equally amusing "one of our employees has stolen all your information").

I'll do it cheap since I have a real job and have been mooching Goats strips since 1998.

Benefits to using some mail hosting business? I don't charge per forward and I have a face you can punch when things go wrong.
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waider
waider
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Re: email sucks (Score: 2, Informative)
posted Thursday, November 27, 2003 - 08:08 PM (#11005)
Funnily enough, my company hosted a talk on mail filtering recently. The guy who did the talk runs a system called whitemail (http://www.whitemail.ie/) but I'm sure there's a bunch of other people who run similar services (messagelabs springs to mind) if you're not keen on routing all your mail through Ireland [1].

The other thing I'd mention, although from reading responses to posts it's probably moot, is that you might want to tune spamassassin some. Check out Danny O'Brien's helpful comments: http://www.oblomovka.com/entries/2003/05/10#105256 0740

Ultimately, though, it does sound like you're looking for something like Whitemail, Messagelabs, or other "We deal with spam for you" service.

Oh, and challenge-response systems suck. You end up sending challenges to completely innocent bystanders (like me) who are being joe-jobbed. I have a procmail rule solely devoted to handling that sort of crap.

[1] Not strictly true. They run at least one colo server in the US
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Lonely Goatherd
Lonely Goatherd
Re: email sucks (Score: 0)
posted Friday, November 28, 2003 - 05:12 AM (#11015)
Hello.
I use www.fastmail.fm
It totally, completely and utterly rules.
It has everything you've asked about, too.
$40 per year. Go check it out
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zamphir
zamphir
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Re: email sucks (Score: 2)
posted Friday, November 28, 2003 - 09:37 AM (#11018)
In Response to Lonely Goatherd (#11015):

Actually, I thought of mentioning fastmail.fm.

But after a quick glance at their website, it didn't look like they would be able to provide service for goats.com, only one of the hundred or so domains they already owned.

And it didn't look like they had "business" services.

Am I wrong?
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Ain't nobody here but us turkeys [youtube.com]
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Kinnison
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Re: email sucks (Score: 2, Intriguing)
posted Friday, November 28, 2003 - 11:17 AM (#11021)
I recommend that you look at http://www.pepperfish.net/ -- they're a small ISP based in the UK but they're very friendly and have a habit of working with customers to find ways to reduce costs for interesting people.

Plus they seem to do everything you want.
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Kinnison
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Re: email sucks (Score: 1)
posted Friday, November 28, 2003 - 11:25 AM (#11022)
In Response to Kinnison (#11021):

I forgot to mention that I help to run Pepperfish :-)

Oh yeah, and since you can look at my profile and then mail me, if you manage to mail me a password from a machine which convinces me enough that it was from you, I'll set you up a webmail account in the interrim which you can use, for nuffink ('cos I'm nice like that)
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mattdm
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Re: If its just the load... (Score: 2, Intriguing)
posted Friday, November 28, 2003 - 01:22 PM (#11023)
In Response to normiep (#10973):

This is excellent advice. Head it.

But first, if you're *not* using spamc/spamd locally, try that. When I first set up spamassassin, I made the mistake of calling it directly from /etc/procmailrc. *Way* too much overhead that way. Changing to using spamc/spamd may solve the problem by itself.
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