Forums & Blog

csimo:

We have no reason to tie up resources doing spam filtering on outbound messages.  Virtually all the spam checks don't apply to outbound messages, but there's no other way to do it in SmarterMail. 

Someone has to be sending all of the email :).

I'm kidding of course and I would also like to see separate options. However, and I know everyone's situation is different, but my personal opinion is that every mail server has a responsibility to check outgoing messages. Not only to protect themselves from ban lists but also for the community as a whole. 

Not to get too off topic, but my question would be what valid checks can you run on outbound messages?  RBL's aren't meant to be used in such a way.  If you use SpamAssassin you're doing mostly RBL checks too and it's not designed for checking originating messages.  RDNS doesn't apply.  SPF doesn't apply.  DomainKeys doesn't apply.  All of those are worthless for outbound messages.  You could use Bayesian Filtering but if you actually blocked a message for failing Bayes I'd tell you to check your sanity since it's subjective test that's not worth much on it's own.

The most valid would be a URIBL check... but guess what, SmarterMail doesn't directly support URIBL's.

Just a waste of time and resources.

-Joe

csimo:

The most valid would be a URIBL check... but guess what, SmarterMail doesn't directly support URIBL's.

It does in 6! I know it's irrelevant to the conversation, I'm just putting it out there.

I'm sure we could put some sort of flag in the .hdr file on whether or not there are local deliveries involved.

csimo:

I can't use many of the other add-ons.  The only way to enable them is to use them via the command line option and SmarterMail does not allow you to call the command line differently on inbound vs outboud messages.

There is also the ability to use the "proc" folder, which is how Declude works. It's a lot more efficient than the command line, but still has the problem that it contains both inbound and outbound messages. 

csimo:

I don't know the SmarterMail pricing for Commtouch but if it's even 1/10th of what I was quoted it's nothing but a waste of time and money to support it.  Why pay thousands of dollars per year for Commtouch when something much better (such as Sniffer) is available for a fraction of the cost?  If you want Commtouch you can have it via Declude at no extra charge above the outrageous Declude pricing.

I don't know the exact price (it varies based on your SmarterMail license size, and they aren't 100% finalized yet), but the numbers I have seen seemed very reasonable. I don't think it's going to be nearly as expensive as you do. 

csimo:

SmarterTools mentions a tool similar to SpamAssassin in 6.x, or even once says they have built their own port of SpamAssassin.  I'm not sure what any of that means... is it SpamAssassin or not?  Can we use all the third party tools that plug into SpamAssassin (DCC, Razor 2, Sought rules, and any of the other hundreds of rule sets available)? 

We wrote a "SpamAssassin rule processing engine". It takes the actual SpamAssassin rule sets and runs all content based checks found within. It will not run DCC/Razor/etc. It is meant to be combined with our Bayesian, RBL, URIBL, SPF, DK, DKIM, RDNS checks to be a replacement for the Windows SpamAssassin build that used to be included. An external Linux SpamAssassin is still likely to be "better," as you get the checks that you mentioned. Though, combined with Greylisting, it is extremely effective. Speaking of Greylisting, take a look at this report and see if you can guess when I turned greylisting on and off.

As a hosting company we set our shared mail server to check against Bayesian and URIBL. We set the block number high but have caught and protected ourselves many times from fraudulent customer signups who try to abuse our servers.

If you want to get strict you can also add SPF and force your customers to setup their domains properly.

James:

As an intermediary solution, do you see any issues with classifying emails with an auth header as outbound and vice versa?

Having said that though, a flag in the .hdr file would be great

Yeah, that's a pretty good idea.

I see some nice features, but what about Outbound Gateway improvements?

Also, I don't know how new logs will be if changed or not..but each day I get a 200,000kb log file.(I know that is large but that is because I have it set to full report). But maybe breaking it up by hour or minute or something to make it easier to load. and maybe an archiving capability after X amount of time.

As for Archiving, will there be an easy way for accounts to restore emails from archive? sometimes things get corrupted(Not as often as 4.X but now and then it happens) and getting things out of the archive is a pain.

Last thing, would it be possible to defaultly have a skin for cellphone users? with cellphones on the rise like no tommorrow a built in cellphone skin won't be too bad. Considering alot IMAP/POP clients for cellphones don't load images.

Lastly, will the reports for bouncing and these other mail service feature be also accessible from webservices?

Kazuma2:

I see some nice features, but what about Outbound Gateway improvements?

What sort of improvements are you looking for with outbound gateways? We put a lot of time into inbound gateways (domain forwarding/smarthosts), and a little time into outbound gateways (ssl/tls support) but I can offer more info if I know what you are looking for.

Kazuma2:

As for Archiving, will there be an easy way for accounts to restore emails from archive? sometimes things get corrupted(Not as often as 4.X but now and then it happens) and getting things out of the archive is a pain.

Archiving has been greatly improved.

 Finally activesync is there. Good work ST.

I have two questions.

1. Can we evaluate the whole activesync features in beta / trial version?

2. What is the level of current activesync integration in SM6, is it just push/direct mail or complete set of features / limited?

azfar:

Can we evaluate the whole activesync features in beta / trial version?

That is our intention at the moment.

azfar:

What is the level of current activesync integration in SM6, is it just push/direct mail or complete set of features / limited?

Full. Push (or on demand) syncing of contacts/calendars/tasks/email. Folder management, sending/replying to mail, searching, etc.

Well for starters things like ability to bind to multiple IPs for sending. Aka send mailing lists with ip 1, send solo emails from ip 2, send welcome and other automated emails from ip 3.

Other things would be authentication. For me to authenticate at an outbound gateway now, I need the same account on both my incoming and outgoing mail server. Some syncing of the authentication would be good.

And in general managing multiple instances should be easier..aka I should be able to manage all instances of smartermail on different servers from 1.

The primary instance should be able to dictate some settings to override each gateway globally making it easier to configure larger clusters.

Also I noticed that lets say I set 2 outbound servers to handle mail from priority 1-10...It should split the load between the 2 servers but in SM5 it seems it just picks the top 1 unless it is down.

ST-TUzzanti:

The current feature preview for SmarterMail 6.x can be seen on the SmarterMail 6.x preview page at:  http://www.smartertools.com/landing/upcomingproducts/smartermail6.aspx

On June 26th, SmarterTools will be updating the preview page with additional information.

hm, I don't see any additional information ;-) ?

Yes an update considering we are so close to the BEta time would be very good :).

Where will the Beta be available from? The portal?

The beta will be available on Monday. Look for a new forum when the time comes.