Zandergraphics Blog

After several days of tweaking and adjusting our mail server I finally have it purring like a kitten. The spam, as I had hoped, has almost completely stopped. Well, it hasn’t really stopped, but rather it is now being blocked and/or returned to the scumbags from whence it came. The changes I made last night had a limited effect on the amount of junk that was coming through, so I stepped it up a couple more notches this morning and now it’s a mere trickle.

I sat down today and examined the mail log for our server over the past week or so and am really pleased with the outlook.

May 21 2007 - 29 unsolicited messages
May 22 2007 - 34 unsolicited messages
May 23 2007 - 31 unsolicited messages
May 24 2007 - 30 unsolicited messages
May 25 2007 - 47 unsolicited messages
May 26 2007 - 31 unsolicited messages
May 27 2007 - 27 unsolicited messages
May 28 2007 - 31 unsolicited messages
May 29 2007 - 31 unsolicited messages
May 30 2007 - 32 unsolicited messages

May 31 2007 - 10 unsolicited messages
(all received before 10:30 am, when I made the changes)

from 10:30 on - 0 unsolicited messages.

As of 10:30 pm, no spam has been passed through the server. Nearly a whole day with no unwelcome messages… that’s simply amazing. It’s almost enough to make a grown man cry… not me, but I’m sure someone out there is weeping silently as they read this.

It’s been an interesting week… both relaxing and a bit stressful at the same time, but I did learn a lot, which is what it’s all about. I was particularly surprised at how strict I could make the server’s spam filters without affecting our normal email traffic. I took it slowly to avoid going too far and seem to have found the right balance among the three different filters we now have in place.

That’s why I love this game….