Blackhole or Fail - Which One Is Better For Your Mail Server?

Very often SPAMMERS take advantage of catch-all email setup on webservers. Every email no matter what the recipients email address is will be caught by the default email account. It is highly recommended not to use catch-all email accounts and to discard SPAM send to non-existing email addresses. SPAM will clog up your SMTP server and consum resources like bandwidth and disk space in mailboxes. In most mail servers and web control panels (like cPanel) the user or admin can decide what will happen to emails with no existing recipient on the server. Refuse to the let emails onto the server and to let the sender's mail server deal with it (option: ":fail:") or to accept these incoming messages but then to delete them right away (option: ":blackhole:".

Our conclusion:

:fail: is the preferred option over :blackhole:.

The :blackhole: option accepts everything sent to the domain mail server and then throws away the email going to a non-existing email account. This option uses the full amount of bandwidth, and also requires that the server be reading and writing messages to disk before they are deleted... multiply this by 1,000 messages a day or so and you can imagine the impact onto your server resources. Imagine your an email address from your domain (a non-existing one) has been spoofed to send out SPAM messages that even carry a virus. Most natural many of these messages will bounce back and hit your mail server. Your web server would have to deal with thousands of attachments at a time. Performance will go down - no matter what.

:fail: stops emails send to invalid recipients from entering the mail server in the first place..Exim will reject each message during the smtp handshake conversation - therefore the actual email message will never make it to your server. It is being refected from entering your system and the sender's email server has to deal with the stuck message. This option is also the better one for legitimate emails where the sender has actually mis-spelled the recipients email address. He would get a bounce message informing him so that the error can be corrected. Depending on your hardware - a server can handle many more :fails: than it can do :blackholes:.

This article can be published by anyone as long as a live back link to http://www.webhostingresourcekit.com is provided. (this note can be removed as long as a link from the author's resource box is provided)

Christoph Puetz is a successful small business owner (Net Services USA LLC) and international author.

Guides, Tutorials, and Articles for small businesses - http://www.webhostingresourcekit.com

---

BUSTED: Anti Spam Forces Bankrupt Super-Spammer Scott Richter

Microsoft scores one for the good guysScott Richter, the self-proclaimed... Read More

Beware Of Spam Withdrawals

Q: I am so sick of all the spam that... Read More

Internet Tip of the Week: Cease and Desist

While we all admit that unsolicited commercial email is a... Read More

The War on Spam: Google Fights Back

Google is engaged in a war. It is a war... Read More

FTC Botches Fight on SPAM, Microsoft Takes Over the Battle

While the Federal Trade Commission is busy fighting over definitions... Read More

CAN-SPAM Basics

I. BACKGROUNDThe CAN-SPAM Act of 2003 (Controlling the Assault of... Read More

How to Avoid Spam Complaints in Your Emails

Spam filters are responsible for deleting a high percentage of... Read More

How Spammers Fool Rule-based and Signature-Based Spam Filters

Effectively stopping spam over the long-term requires much more than... Read More

Stop Intrusive Pop-up Ads and Regain Control of Your Online Experience!

Stop intrusive pop-up ads and regain control of your online... Read More

Get Your News Releases Through the Spam Filters in 11 Easy Steps

In today's spam-filled email world, it's sometimes VERY difficult to... Read More

Getting Back To Basics.

While we all agree that there`s way too much spamming/junk-mailing... Read More

Pst... Pass It On... I Found Out Its a Hoax

When you receive an email telling you about a virus,... Read More

The Great Spam Scam: Five Strategies To Stop Brand and Revenue Robbery

Marketers usually think of anti-spam tactics as 'how to prevent'... Read More

Im Guilty Until Proven Innocent

No doubt about it."Spam" (unsolicited commercial email) threatens to paralyze... Read More

The Definition of Spam

Spam can bring down your website faster than a speeding... Read More

Spammer in the Slammer: Jeremy Jaynes Sentenced to Nine Years

Will other spammers take heed? Don't count on it.Jeremy Jaynes... Read More

Stuffing the Spammers!

I'm really, truly fed up with spam. Every day when... Read More

Is There A National Do Not Spam List?

You may have already received a do not spam list... Read More

Which Spam Filter Is Best For You?

With the number of spam filtering solutions increasing each week... Read More

Three Faces of SPAM

Like everybody who will ever read this, I get spam... Read More

Email Chain Letters - Harmless Fun or Not?

I'm sure I'm not the only person on the planet... Read More

Is Your Website Blacklisted?

A blacklist, as the name implies, is a list of... Read More

Kill The Messenger (Service)

You are familiar with the software applications that you run... Read More

Demand for Spam? It exists

Do you like spam? No, I'm not kidding. Everybody knows... Read More

The Cybermagic of Whitelists

Before we start getting deep into the meat of this... Read More

Having a Bad e MALE Day? Email, Spam, Spam and More Spam

You just sat at your desk, opened your email account... Read More

Junk Mail Works!

Junk mail works. Why does it work? How does it... Read More

Spam: The Tasteless Internet Meat of Criminals

Spam. You've all heard of the crazy pink meat in... Read More

Dont Give the Spammers Your Address From Your Page

Spammers get email addresses from web pages using programs called... Read More

Spam - Its Whats For Breakfast

The first thing I do every morning when I wake... Read More

How Spammers Fool Bayesian Filters - And How to Stop Them

Effectively stopping spam over the long-term requires much more than... Read More

Block Spam with An Easy Behavioral Change

E-mails now have a connection back to their servers. I... Read More

What to Do to Avoid Getting Banned

How would you feel if you found a link on... Read More