[Bcc: balug-speaker-coordinators@balug.org]

Well, taking this on-list because, ... well, why not, ...

From: "Grant Bowman" grantbow@partimus.org Subject: handling the spam to balug-speaker-coordinators Date: Mon, 23 Apr 2018 13:54:32 -0700

What's the best way to handle the spam to balug-speaker-coordinators?

Well, let's see,

o one could volunteer, get an account on the relevant host, and at least make suggestions regarding configuration changes to reduce spam, ... but note too, that for most @balug.org addresses (notably aliases), one would want a quite low rate of false positives. But regardless I'm sure the anti-spam filtering could be well improved even with that constraint.

Oooh, you already have an account - that makes much of that that much easier: $ hostname; fgrep -i bowman /etc/passwd balug-sf-lug-v2.balug.org grantbow:x:14589:14589:Grant Bowman,,,:/home/grantbow:/bin/sh $

o one could ask/recruit volunteers to assist ... but may be faster and more efficient (and frankly more likely to get done and/or sooner) if one is able to do more/much of it oneself. E.g. much more likely something gets done if one is able to do it oneself, or short of that, hand one with the access a well tested configuration to fix the issue along with evidence it's been well tested and addresses the issue - much more likely something like that gets done, than something more like "I have an issue, figure it out and fix it for me." ;-) And yes, there may well even be folks that would be interested in learning some of the relevant bits - so you might, e.g. ask on list - maybe could even be bit of team/cooperative effort.

o If I'm not mistaken, most all of the MTA and anti-spam configuration on the host is world-readable - most notable exception being private key for TLS/SSL cert for STARTTLS MTA processing. If there's something one needs to read there but doesn't have access, let me know, and likely that can be addressed as relevant/appropriate.

Wow, lookie, even have a fair bit of sudo access already (probably more than needed for looking at MTA/anti-spam configuration bits, but regardless): $ sudo sudo -l -U grantbow | sed -ne '/may run/,$p' User grantbow may run the following commands on balug-sf-lug-v2: (root) /bin/su - balugwm2 (root) /bin/su - sflug (root) /bin/su - sflugwww (sflug) ALL (root) sudoedit /etc/bind/master/sf-lug.org (root) sudoedit /etc/bind/master/sf-lug.com (root) /bin/systemctl reload bind9 $

Also, I've made mention on some list(s) ... don't recall which one(s) off-the-top-of-my-head (perhaps this one) ... a few items of note. May possibly consider changing MTA on the host - but it would need to well work with mailman (which covers the @lists.balug.org addresses). Most of the anti-spam uses Eximconfig - but though that was a good base start for anti-spam, it's apparently no longer maintained, so also quite possible the "best" anti-spam solution(s) for the needs (including fit for the OS and mailman, and also resources the VM does/doesn't have), may possibly involve a change in MTA. But given all the interdependencies (mailman, live production, lists, aliases, etc.), change of MTA would need be well tested somehow ... and any anti-spam configuration changes should also be sufficiently well tested - at least to the extent feasible.

Also, a bunch of the current anti-spam is relatively Python based ... but that may mostly have to do with the current MTA and Eximconfig more than anything else.

Anyway, certainly feel free to have a look around, etc. If you want me to implement some specific (reasonably well tested/vetted) configuration changes, just let me know the specifics (also probably not bad idea to put it on this list ... more eyeballs may better spot things we could do better, and public searchable is more opportunities for others to find and learn from same).

Also, one can expect that the @balug.org email addresses ... notably especially publicly listed (and mandatory, etc.), such as balug-speaker-coordinators, postmaster, balug-webmaster, balug-contact, etc. do get spam, and given the need for low false-positive rate on filtering, there's likely to always be some moderate flow of spam that make it through. I'm sure I've made at least some mention of this before. List admins such as myself likewise deal with a lot of that for the @lists.balug.org ... but there it's mostly caught and held for processing as a non-list member post attempt, reviewed by listadmin(s), and discarded (or simply left to expire based on the generally obvious spam nature and the ease of doing nothing to have it disposed of).