Re: GFI MailEssentials & MailSecurity
- From: tim S <tim724342@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: "\[ISAserver.org Discussion List\]" <isalist@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Tue, 29 Mar 2005 14:33:21 -0800 (PST)
Rob Moore <RMoore@xxxxxxxx> wrote: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?
[tim] I manage ISA server and I guess I am an ISA folk. It must be just a
conincident that I have GFI mail essential (not GFI mail security) running on
the SMTP relay server.
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?
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?
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.
[tim]
GFI mail essentail has nothing to do with the DNS server. It just sits on the
SMTP service and waits. When the SMTP service gets an email, it alerts the
GFI. GFI then receives the email and performs its work. After analyzing the
email and depending on the rule, it hands back the email to SMTP service.
That's it. If you have problem with emails not being sent or received, it's
the SMTP service that you need to worry about. In your case, I think the DNS
configuration and hardware are screwed up.
I've been using GFI mailessential for about a year. It has its pros and cons.
The pro is easy user interface and very low learning curve. The con is that it
lacks some features which is common with many spam filters. GFI has four spam
checking modules and each one has a log file. Dig through the GFI install
directory.
Thanks a lot for your thoughts,
Rob
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