mailman spam question

[Nick Rout]

I admin a couple of mailing lists. Mailman is used. From time to time
I get admin requests to do with spam that is suspicious but doesn't
quite tip the scales to get automatically rejected.

Always these messages are from people who are not subscribed to these
subscriber only lists.

So my questions is, why doesn't mailman reject them as from non
subscribers before checking them as spam (and then asking me what to
do with them if they are slightly, but not fully, dodgy looking).

Oh and please don't suggest another mailing list manager. I admin the
lists, not the machine that hosts them, and I am very grateful that
someone else admins the machine!

_______________________________________________
NZLUG mailing list ***@linux.net.nz
http://www.linux.net.nz/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/nzlug

[Mark Foster]

The (several) mailing lists I administer driven via Mailman (including this
one) don't have any 'spam filtering' applied, it's simply configured to
queue for moderator attention any emails that come from non-subscribed
addresses. You can twiddle with what occurs with non-sub'd postings from
within the web-admin panel, but if there's also some 'clever' spamfiltering
going on on the machine in question I can't speak for how it's integrated in
your case...

Clear as Mud? :-)

Cheers
Mark.

-----Original Message-----
From: nzlug-***@linux.net.nz [mailto:nzlug-***@linux.net.nz] On
Behalf Of Nick Rout
Sent: Wednesday, 10 November 2010 9:25 a.m.
To: NZLUG Mailing List
Subject: [nzlug] mailman spam question

I admin a couple of mailing lists. Mailman is used. From time to time I get
admin requests to do with spam that is suspicious but doesn't quite tip the
scales to get automatically rejected.

Always these messages are from people who are not subscribed to these
subscriber only lists.

So my questions is, why doesn't mailman reject them as from non subscribers
before checking them as spam (and then asking me what to do with them if
they are slightly, but not fully, dodgy looking).

Oh and please don't suggest another mailing list manager. I admin the lists,
not the machine that hosts them, and I am very grateful that someone else
admins the machine!

_______________________________________________
NZLUG mailing list ***@linux.net.nz
http://www.linux.net.nz/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/nzlug


_______________________________________________
NZLUG mailing list ***@linux.net.nz
http://www.linux.net.nz/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/nzlug

[Nick Rout]

Post by Mark Foster
The (several) mailing lists I administer driven via Mailman (including this
one) don't have any 'spam filtering' applied, it's simply configured to
queue for moderator attention any emails that come from non-subscribed
addresses.  You can twiddle with what occurs with non-sub'd postings from
within the web-admin panel, but if there's also some 'clever' spamfiltering
going on on the machine in question I can't speak for how it's integrated in
your case...
Clear as Mud? :-)
Cheers
Mark.

I know that I have used spamassassin with mailman before when i
admined my own mail server. The same seems to be happening now on the
current server I am using. Here is the moderator message (have deleted
the name of the poor sap whose email address has probably been
subverted):

The ***@lists.linuxnut.co.nz mailing list has 2 request(s)
waiting for your consideration at:

http://lists.ourshack.com/mailman/admindb/mythtvnz

Please attend to this at your earliest convenience. This notice of
pending requests, if any, will be sent out daily.


Pending posts:
From: [deleted] on Mon Nov 8 10:26:05 2010
Subject: Dear Friend,
Cause: SpamAssassin identified this message as possible spam (score 7.7)

From: [deleted] on Mon Nov 8 10:51:48 2010
Subject: Dear Friend,
Cause: SpamAssassin identified this message as possible spam (score 7.7)

_______________________________________________
NZLUG mailing list ***@linux.net.nz
http://www.linux.net.nz/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/nzlug

[Jim Tittsler]

Post by Nick Rout
So my questions is, why doesn't mailman reject them as from non
subscribers before checking them as spam (and then asking me what to
do with them if they are slightly, but not fully, dodgy looking).

By default, the pipeline that a message flows through Mailman checks
'SpamDetect' first and then later list membership (in the 'Moderate'
handler). If you prefer, you can reorder the Mailman pipeline either
globally (in your mm_cfg.py) or on a per list basis (using
bin/withlist) to do the list membership check first.

GLOBAL_PIPELINE.remove('SpamDetect')
GLOBAL_PIPELINE.insert(GLOBAL_PIPELINE.index('Moderate') + 1,
'SpamDetect')

Depending upon whether you prefer to hold/discard/reject at each stage
of the pipeline, different orders of handlers make more sense.

Ordering and/or inserting pipeline stages is what turns Mailman from a
mailing list manager to more of a mailing list manager construction
set. :-)

_______________________________________________
NZLUG mailing list ***@linux.net.nz
http://www.linux.net.nz/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/nzlug