RE: GFI MailEssentials & MailSecurity
- From: "John Tolmachoff \(Lists\)" <johnlist@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: "'[ISAserver.org Discussion List]'" <isalist@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Tue, 29 Mar 2005 12:18:47 -0800
Inline
John T
eServices For You
-----Original Message-----
From: Rob Moore [mailto:RMoore@xxxxxxxx]
Sent: Tuesday, March 29, 2005 11:02 AM
To: [ISAserver.org Discussion List]
Subject: [isalist] GFI MailEssentials & MailSecurity
http://www.ISAserver.org
Hello all--
For the past couple of months I've been searching for the right (for us)
solution to spam and mail-borne viruses. One of the things I want to do is
keep the product(s) on a gateway server, not have it/them directly on either
our ISA 2004 server or our Exchange 2003 server. I've tried a couple of
products: Symantec Mail Security for SMTP, which we already own because it
is included with another product we own, and GFI
MailEssentials/MailSecurity. I like the GFI products a lot, but have a had a
couple of problems with them. I'm looking for input from someone besides GFI
on these problems, and since I think these two products are fairly well
thought of in the ISA community, I thought I'd look here.
So, if you're willing:
1. Am I correct that ISA folks like these two products?
I do not use them, so technically I do not like them, nor do I dislike them.
;)
2. The problems we've had all relate to when the server stops performing its
function. On more than one occasion, the server has quit sending/receiving
email with no errors in the event log either during the incident or after.
In each case a reboot fixed it, but since we didn't know there was a
problem, external email flow was stopped for a while. On one occasion, the
server just ate the mail it was supposed to be sending and receiving. On the
other occasions at least the mail got delivered after a reboot. On one
occasion the problem was caused by bad memory (not the server's fault, but
it would have been nice if there had been some sort of error to let us know
what was going on). On another occasion the problem started when one of our
DNS servers crashed. When the DNS server came back on, the GFI server didn't
start functioning again. I can believe that this might not have been the
server's fault, but wouldn't you think there'd be errors or something in the
event log?
Each service that is touching and processing an e-mail message must have a
way to log what it does. I would have to assume that GFI has a way to log
what happens to each message it processes, and you need to look into where
that log is or how to set it up.
For DNS issues, I have found the best way is to set up the DNS service on
the box that is doing the scanning, point the scanning software to it for
lookups, and in the DNS service configuration point it 4-5 forwarders. That
way, if one of those DNS servers goes down, it makes no difference.
Are these the kinds of problems I should just expect on an SMTP gateway?
Another piece to keep in mind is that the "server" the GFI products are
installed on is really just a workstation (since I haven't bought the
product yet), though it is running Server 2003. Do you think putting it on a
real server-class machine will help matters at all?
No, you should have to expect or live with those kinds of problems in this
day and age. Hardware only matters if it becomes a bottle neck. Performance
monitor is what you need to use for that.
Anyway, if anyone has input about these GFI products and the issues I've
raised, I'd love to hear it. Although I'd rather not switch to yet another
product (and have my users have to train the spam filter all over again), if
you think some other alternative is a lot better than these GFI products,
I'd like to hear that, too.
Different products have different experiences based on different
configurations. The GFI products (as well as others such as the Symantec
Gateway products) might be fine for corporate environments, but would be
either worthless or problematic in an ASP or ISP configuration. So, for
recommendations, you should post a little more about your situation.
Thanks a lot for your thoughts,
Rob
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