[Novalug] Virtual vs real users and domains when setting up an Email Server

[James Ewing Cottrell 3rd]

On 7/28/2010 12:31 PM, The Doctor wrote:
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> James Ewing Cottrell 3rd wrote:
>    
>> Good article. One slight tweak. The spam assassin, as well as any other
>> contol files can't be in the "user"s "home directory", as there are
>> (often) no "users". However, the closest thing to a "home directory"
>> might be the top level of the mailbox, the one that contains the "new"
>> and "cur" directories in a maildir structure. Index files are often
>> stored here too.
>>      
> There is another problem with running SpamAssassin on a shared mail
> server: it has to be tuned and trained based upon the mail patterns of
> each user to make it work optimally.  The scores for each category often
> need to be tweaked a little bit (usually upward) and the trainer should
> be run periodically over each user's spam folder to keep it up to date.
>   That also means that the users need to go through their junk folders to
> move the real messages out before training to keep SA from adding
> legitimate messages' characteristics to its recognizer (sorry, mom...)
>
> Past a certain point (in previous lives, about twenty users on a mail
> server) it becomes more feasible to let users handle spam sorting on
> their side with their mail clients and just put AV filtering in place on
> the server as a first line of defense.
>    
In Theory, this is true, as One Man's Spam is another Man's Ham. Or 
perhaps Lamb.

But in Practice, Spam is Spam, and we probably all agree.

In any case, I was arguing that while no "home directory" exists for any 
of these "users", there is definitely a place for them on a per-mailbox 
basis.

JIM