Author: dmjossel

The spam filtering software in use for Synfibers IT clients, Spamassassin, has been upgraded to version 3.1. This version is currently configured not to delete any messages, but to rewrite the subject of spam messages by adding the letters “[SPAM]” to the beginning, as well as to add special headers to the message, which may…

Synfibers IT Consulting specializes in installing and modifying dynamic, web-based content management systems for a variety of purposes, such as: Online news outlets Interactive community applications Corporate intranets Membership organization applications All content is stored in a relational database, allowing application interfaces to be modified and extended over time without the need to reformat data.…

A small glitch while trying to set up a mailing list last week ended up having an unexpected conseequence: after everything was fixed, the good people at Verio Tech Support installed a new version of SpamAssassin (2.63) to replace the previous custom installation of 2.55. By all accounts this version was easier to install and…

Earlier this week, I began migrating all of the sites hosted by Synfibers that were using the PHP-based CMS called Drupal from version 4.2 (and one site that was hosted on a modified 4.0 installation) to the latest and greatest edition, 4.3.2. For the most part, the process was pretty painless. Unlike some previous upgrades,…

The following missive was received this morning from Yahoo. Yahoo has been blocking mail from Synfibers for more than two months now following abuse of one of our proxy servers by spammers. Unlike many other blacklists, Yahoo does not re-test open relays for at least 60 days, which is why the problem was not resolved…

The SpamAssassin mail filter is also functioning once again. Some users may still experience email being blocked from certain servers, but within the next day this should end.

The configuration that got our server put on some blackhole lists (lists that ISPs use to block incoming email, assuming it is junk mail) and also caused email to be inaccessible for part of the last day or so has now been fixed. The only remaining obstacle is that the SpamAssassin spam filter does not…

While trying to implement a new security feature, an error in configuration was made that allowed some non-Synfibers clients to send junk mail through our server to the Internet. The problem has been corrected now. However, becacuse of this, it is possible that over the next few days you may have difficulty sending mail to…

We are preparing to downgrade VPS v2 Servers running FreeBSD version 4.8 to FreeBSD version 4.7. The reason for this downgrade is to remove instability that we were experiencing on FreeBSD version 4.8. These downgrades will begin at 00:01 on 10/17 GMT. All upgrades will begin between 00:01 and 01:00 GMT. This downgrade will require…

The spam filtering program used at Synfibers, SpamAssassin, has been upgraded from version 2.43 to version 2.55 to fix some problems users were having and to introduce new features. No system is 100% perfect, however, so some junk mail will still get through. SpamAssassin should help you filter out most of it. The header it…