forked from pifty/tutes-dump
65 lines
3.3 KiB
Plaintext
Executable File
65 lines
3.3 KiB
Plaintext
Executable File
[11] HOW DOES THE SDF MAIL SERVER WORK? IS IT RELIABLE? HOW?
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INTERNET Electronic Mail on SDF is handled by the 'sendmail' daemon
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configured to answer up to 128 requests at a time. 'sendmail' implements
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the TCP/IP SMTP (Simple Mail Transfer Protocol). The server is at any
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given time working on 25-50 incoming/outgoing pieces of mail with a queue
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of just under 200 messages (as of 31-Mar-06).
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IS IT RELIABLE?
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Yes, it is reliable. However, it is not recommended for emergencies.
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If you are dying, please call 911. Do not use email. Likewise, if
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you need to communicate something quickly, please call the recipient.
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IF THE MAIL SERVER IS DOWN, WHERE DOES MY MAIL GO? DO I LOSE IT?
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Absolutely not. All SMTP mail servers should be configured to retry
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to send email to a recipient SMTP server at a set interval for,
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at the very least, 5 days before returning to sender.
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SDF is configured to retry to send pending your outgoing messages every
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30 minutes for 5 days before returning them to you.
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Again, no properly configured sending server is going to dump your
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email just because the server didn't respond the first time, or the
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second time or even the 30th time. It will take a server being down
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the good portion of a week for mail to be 'bounced' back to the sender.
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You may assume that it works otherwise, but that just is not the truth.
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SDF also has secondary MXes (Mail eXchangers) which can accept SDF
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email during the very rare occassions that the primary MX is down
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for maintenance or otherwise. This email is then queued via UUCP
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(UNIX to UNIX CoPy) and is polled by the mail server every 60 minutes.
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DOES SDF FILTER EMAIL BY CONTENT?
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ABSOLUTELY NOT! Your email is yours. We honestly have no time and no
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desire to scan email content. Regardless, we find the idea of content
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scanning highly unethical.
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DO YOU BLOCK OR WHITELIST ANY SMTP SENDING SERVERS?
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SDF, like other organizations, uses the Open Relay Database ordb.org.
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The ORDB is a very reliable method of preventing reception from rogue
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SPAM senders. It essentially denies reception for email from hosts
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that are either purposely or accidentally configured to allow anyone
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to send email to anyone through them. It also tracks senders that do
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not have a PTR record (a DNS reverse look up pointer).
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You possibly will still receive spam as it is an unfortunately
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inevitability with internet email these days. The best words of
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advice is to not use your email address on the WWW, or if you must,
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obscure it in such a way that only a human could figure it out.
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We also feel that if you want to filter your own email, then it is up
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to you. You also deserve to receive every email directed towards you
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and we should not, in any way, censor or filter email destined to you
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with exception of the highly regarded ORDB project.
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We recommend that any filtering you do be done offsite. Most client
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email programs such as Mail.APP (MACOS X) will do a sufficient job at
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filtering 'junk' for you. While procmail could be used for the same
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purpose, it is highly more advantagous for you to not use SDF's CPU but
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rather just download all of your email and filter it on your machine.
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