I'm posting this for those who are using VSMTP32 and are not aware of how to
control the amount of SPAM that can enter your system.

By default, VSMTP32 does not block any incoming email to your BBS users. This
includes any legitimate mail as well as SPAM. If you are starting to receive or
have been receiving SPAM, then there are a few easy steps you can do to start
preventing it, and one advanced step that can stop it. Once the SPAM mail
servers find your server then it will not stop coming.

The easiest thing to do to guard against SPAM is to enable relay database
lookups. This can be enabled by clicking "Settings", then clicking "Relay DB
Configuration", then click "Enable". There are four relay databases already
setup by default.

Relay database lookup works like this - a mail server connects to your server.
Your server then knows the IP address of who just connected. Your server will
then send a DNS query to each of the configured relay databases one by one and
if it receives a valid response back then that IP address is in the database.
If the IP is in the database then VSMTP32 will not continue the connection.

Different databases contain different types of problem servers. Some only
contain entries for relays, some contain entries for known compromised
computers and some contain entries for known spammers. Just by enabling this
option, your SPAM should be immediately cut down.

One additional relay database that is not configured by default that will cover
even more problem computers is Spamhaus. You can get more information about
this service at www.spamhaus.org. If you would like for VSMTP32 to use this
service then add a new relay database "sbl-xbl.spamhaus.org".

If this still has not controlled your SPAM inflow then you can enable the
advanced feature of SpamAssassin. SpamAssassin is a mail filter that identifies
SPAm. You have to teach it what SPAM is and what isn't. After a while it can
identify SPAM at a very high percentage and will learn the more you feed it. It
requires that you have Perl installed on your computer and you will have to
compile the binary yourself for SpamAssassin using Visual C++. I will not cover
how to setup or configure this program. It is very advanced but it has many
features and can be tailored to do generally whatever you want. You can learn
more about SpamAssassin at http://spamassassin.apache.org

Hopefully this will help those of you who are experiencing this.

Steve


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