sendmail issue. rick

[Rick Stevens]

Craig White wrote:
> On Thu, 2004-07-22 at 10:02, Cowles, Steve wrote:
> 
>>Jonathan T. Steadman wrote:
>>
>>>Rick,
>>>I understand where you are coming from, but at the same time if I
>>>don't try then how will I learn?

I wasn't trying to be mean.  It's just that far too many people have
tried to set up sendmail or mail in general and have become open relays.
I'm trying to make sure that doesn't happen to you.
>>>                                  You are correct in your assumption
>>>that I am a newb in this area, but it is a learning experience for
>>>me, I realize the risk in being a victim of an exploited mail server,
>>>and trust me while I am doing this I constantly check mail logs, ect.
>>>and I have no problem with unplugging myself from Internet
>>>temporarily until the problem is fixed, my server is not running
>>>anything vitally important just a lot of servers running because I am
>>>trying to learn how things work on linux box, I am only 16 and like I
>>>said trying to pick up on some new things this summer, because I dont
>>>have a lot of time during the year due to the fact that I try to
>>>focus most my effort on school for the last couple years I am in high
>>>school.

Again, I'm not trying to be overbearing.  I'm perhaps a bit hyper-
sensitive about this as I run a mail system that has 10,000 domains and
about 68,000 users.  My systems have to handle between 16 and 20 million
messages a day (yes, million) and fully 40% of that is spam, viruii and
worms.

>>>  Anyways I appreciate your concern and dont think I just take
>>>your advice fix it and then, when I go to another setup, I ask all
>>>over again, I try to learn from advice given on this board, and take
>>>notes on things I think are worth remembering, read through as much
>>>as I can on links that are handed to me, as well as bookmark them if
>>>I don't have the time to read them immediately.  Anyways I have
>>>gotten the answer to my problem and all things are working well now. 
>>>Thanks a lot to everyone who helped with this one it is much
>>>appreciated. 

If you're going to tinker with sendmail, I highly recommend the "Bat
Book" from O'Reilly.

>>Given your age, I'm impressed with your attitude towards learning and how
>>you have applied that attitude towards implementing your mail server. We all
>>have to start somewhere.

I must concur with that.  Jonathan has the right attitude.  It is often
difficult to convey the proper tone in a text message and if mine was
misconstrued, I appologize for that.

>>Keep up the good work Rick.

I'll try.

> I think we all go through stages where we think we know it all and swat
> people that don't know it all - forgetting that we too started out
> knowing way too little. Then we come around and realize that it is best
> to share the knowledge and encourage people to learn. It's never
> personal. Thankfully, I am in share mode now.  ;-)

As am I.  I think the tonal shade of my message was misinterpreted.
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- Rick Stevens, Senior Systems Engineer     rstevens at vitalstream.com -
- VitalStream, Inc.                       http://www.vitalstream.com -
-                                                                    -
-                 All generalizations are false.                     -
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