Mailing List Archive

Hi,

I don't know about the qmail implementation of spf, but i just want to
mention: spf is not an anti-spam tool. Sure, it may help in that regard,
but it is designed to prevent forgery, not spam.

What is probably happening is that some users have spf records on their
domains, and they are sending mail from those domains in a way that is
not allowed by the said records.

I took a quick look on http://www.saout.de/misc/spf/, which is i suspect
the implementation you are using. It says:


> 6: Reject mails when SPF does not resolve to pass

Which is too much. If a domain does not publish an spf record, the
result will be 'none'. You want to receive mails from domains that don't
publish spf records.

> 3: Reject mails when SPF resolves to fail (deny)

This is indeed what you want, and what is stipulated in the specs. If
you want to cut down spam, use:

- dnsbl's like sbl-xbl from spamhaus.org
- rejection of mail that helo's as yourself, but is connected remotely
- ..


I do suggest you take a stroll around the spf.pobox.com site, to get a
grasp of what SPF actually is. The following sections may be especially
of interest:

For a start:

http://dev.spf.pobox.com/howworks.html


For more info about spf records:

http://spf.pobox.com/mechanisms.html


For the FAQ section:

http://dev.spf.pobox.com/faq.html


Koen



On Mon, Aug 02, 2004 at 05:28:30PM +0800, lito lampitoc wrote:
> Hi All,
>
> I configured SPF for my QMail and put 6 as the value for spfbehavior, it
> works well at the start, I have zero spam for a week, but suddenly I
> received calls from my users complaining that they can't receive e-mail
> from legitimate sources, which means the one sending e-mail to my users
> are not registered on spf list, so I lighten the value to 3, now, I have
> the same volume of spam as I didn't have an SPF implementation before,
> why is it so? isn't it t SPF should have at least lessen my spam, this
> somewhat makes my SPF implementation useless. Please help.
>
> Thanks.
>
> -------
> Archives at http://archives.listbox.com/spf-help/current/
> Donate! http://spf.pobox.com/donations.html
> To unsubscribe, change your address, or temporarily deactivate your subscription,
> please go to http://v2.listbox.com/member/?listname=spf-help@v2.listbox.com

--
K.F.J. Martens, Sonologic, http://www.sonologic.nl/
Networking, embedded systems, unix expertise, artificial intelligence.
Public PGP key: http://www.metro.cx/pubkey-gmc.asc
Wondering about the funny attachment your mail program
can't read? Visit http://www.openpgp.org/

-------
Archives at http://archives.listbox.com/spf-help/current/
Donate! http://spf.pobox.com/donations.html
To unsubscribe, change your address, or temporarily deactivate your subscription,
please go to http://v2.listbox.com/member/?listname=spf-help@v2.listbox.com