The Sysadmin’s Daily Grind: Postfilter

THE GOOD NEWS

Article from Issue 75/2007
Author(s):

If protocols were human beings, NNTP would be a kind and slightly confused person that always believes the best of other people – even if they drop trash in the mailbox. Postfilter gives NNTP a watchdog.

Network News Transfer Protocol (NNTP) has been written off many times, but Usenet will probably still be around when the last Web 2.0 forum bites the dust. This wouldn’t be such a bad thing if the protocol had some kind of protection mechanisms. As things stand, people on Usenet tend to misbehave. As an admin, I once infuriated the Usenet community (abuse@kuehnast.com: Mailbox full), and then the disbelief of the offender: “Wadya mean crossposting is bad?” Postfilter adds spam and abuse protection to your server. I won’t go into the installation steps here, as the homepage has a fantastic guide.

Buy this article as PDF

Express-Checkout as PDF
Price $2.95
(incl. VAT)

Buy Linux Magazine

SINGLE ISSUES
 
SUBSCRIPTIONS
 
TABLET & SMARTPHONE APPS
Get it on Google Play

US / Canada

Get it on Google Play

UK / Australia

Related content

  • Charly's Column

    Leafnode is a Usenet server for small sites where just a few users need access to a large number of groups. The Leafnode server is designed to recover from errors autonomously and needs very little attention.

  • Usenet

    Before the web as we know it existed, Usenet performed the same tasks now done by web forums and social networks. Despite its declining popularity, Usenet is still employed to publish articles, sustain mailing lists, and even upload files.

  • Charly's Column

    Charly loves to be organized, but he also likes to have access to mail that reached him when the dinosaurs were still roaming the earth.

  • Charly's Column

    On a trip to Berlin, Charly discovers that the nmap port scanner has a new cousin who enjoys spying on phones – smap scans networks for VoIP devices.

  • Charly's Column

    Twitter, so everyone says, is modern, fun, sociologically illuminating and otherwise useless. Even Charly feeds a budgie – but at the console, it's a question of style.

comments powered by Disqus
Subscribe to our Linux Newsletters
Find Linux and Open Source Jobs
Subscribe to our ADMIN Newsletters

Support Our Work

Linux Magazine content is made possible with support from readers like you. Please consider contributing when you’ve found an article to be beneficial.

Learn More

News