Question regarding OVH spam filtering and providers that use them.

[KuJoe]

I ready that OVH does both outbound and inbound filtering on network, does anybody know anything about this (I can't find any details other than they have something in place)?


Additionally can somebody recommend a good VPS provider that uses OVH that I can grab a small VPS for remote SMTP? Thanks!

 

[nunim]

Not sure about their SPAM filtering as my personal mail is handled via Google Apps which does an excellent job.

I can recommend MyCustomHosting(MCH) for very affordable KVM in OVH BHS.  Phil might know more about their filtering procedures. 

 

[DomainBop]

providers that use them.

 not a provider but I do have 6 servers at OVH and another 5 at Kimsufi 

I'm going to be reallllllllly lazy and copy one of my WHT posts.

They've been using Vade Retro to filter outgoing SMTP traffic since last summer and it doesn't catch everything (they claim a 99% success rate at catching outgoing SPAM).

For anyone interested, these 2 updates have a bit more info on the anti-spam process OVH uses on SMTP traffic http://status.ovh.net/?do=details&id=4889 and http://status.ovh.co.uk/?do=details&id=5669

to answer this question:

Additionally can somebody recommend a good VPS provider that uses OVH that I can grab a small VPS for remote SMTP?

MCHPhil is the only one I can think of (at BHS/Canada)

edited to add a link to Vade Retro: http://www.vade-retro.com/en/

 

[HalfEatenPie]

You can always buy a VM from OVH directly

 

[DomainBop]

You can always buy a VM from OVH directly

Their slabbed OpenVZ VPS's....suck (unless you like the excitement of  frequent reboots).

 

[KuJoe]

Thanks for the feedback so far. I'll do some more research on what my options are but it looks like setting up an OVH VPS as as a remote SMTP server will be the easiest route.

You can always buy a VM from OVH directly

I didn't know they sold VPSs, I'll probably pick one up to test with.

 

[DomainBop]

Thanks for the feedback so far. I'll do some more research on what my options are but it looks like setting up an OVH VPS as as a remote SMTP server will be the easiest route.

I didn't know they sold VPSs, I'll probably pick one up to test with.

The low end VPS Classic ones (from 1.99 euros) are OpenVZ slabbed inside VMWare.  Performance isn't the best and they're prone to reboots.  The VPS Cloud (9.99 euro, 2GB and above) are VMWare and fairly reliable.

 

[HalfEatenPie]

Yeah their cheap VM line reboots frequently. So I mean if you just want to test it out go for it, but for reliability I'd say grab one from MCH.

 

[KuJoe]

I don't need reliability since the people using it won't be paying for it so the cheaper for me the better.

 

[wlanboy]

I don't need reliability since the people using it won't be paying for it so the cheaper for me the better.

We do have a

 

[KuJoe]

We do have a

They're $10/year plan would probably be perfect for me but now I'm wondering if it's a good idea dealing with a middle man since the whole point of the server is that I expect to have quite a bit of outgoing spam so at least if I can deal with the data center directly then I won't have to worry about where the abuse reports go to and I can probably get the IP SWIPed in my name.

I'm stilling looking for a local solution but so far the only remote filtering option in my budget is OVH (and I still haven't ruled out disabling SMTP all together).

 

[MCH-Phil]

I do not have any outbound email services at OVH.  From what I understand, they filter outbound spam.  Filtering in would be crazy for a DC, even OVH.  They usually block port 25 for the offending IP OR block the whole IP.  It's not a good thing really with any DC.  OVH, doesn't care for it either.  It also requires a ticket if it happens multiple times for an IP.  Ultimately, delaying the entire process.

If you have any specific questions please let me know.

 

[splitice]

They do have filtering, requires tickets to get it fixed. Both times we saw it (both falseish positives from end users with bouncy forum mass emails), it was just port 25 blocked.

I don't know if there is an escalation where the entire IP is blocked, I haven't seen it but it sounds frightening if true.

 

[HalfEatenPie]

They do have filtering, requires tickets to get it fixed. Both times we saw it (both falseish positives from end users with bouncy forum mass emails), it was just port 25 blocked.

I don't know if there is an escalation where the entire IP is blocked, I haven't seen it but it sounds frightening if true.

Haha problems working with OVH sometimes.

 

[Awmusic12635]

They're $10/year plan would probably be perfect for me but now I'm wondering if it's a good idea dealing with a middle man since the whole point of the server is that I expect to have quite a bit of outgoing spam so at least if I can deal with the data center directly then I won't have to worry about where the abuse reports go to and I can probably get the IP SWIPed in my name.

I'm stilling looking for a local solution but so far the only remote filtering option in my budget is OVH (and I still haven't ruled out disabling SMTP all together).

There are a few other local solutions that you can run however they are on the more expensive side, such as mailchannels. They have an on premise and "cloud" version

 

[willie]

Yeah, I had the 3 USD/month OVH slabbed vps for a few months and it did reboot a few times, though it worked pretty well when it was up.  I wrote something about it in the reviews section.  I also have had two OVH dedis (both at BHS) with a combined 2 years or so of operation and zero downtime.  The OVH VMware vps doesn't seem that attractive compared to a Kimsufi dedi if you are ok with the box being in EU.

 

[KuJoe]

I've decided to setup my own remote filtering setup using ASSP, hopefully it works (if not I have a failsafe that I wrote for qmail to shutdown the service if the queue gets too large).

Thanks everybody for all of the helpful replies. I know where to look if my solution doesn't hold up.

 

[marrco]

I don't know if you yo use ASSP v1 or v2, but if you need i have startup and munin script to manage v1. Regarding VPS use any classic 1.99 ovh will do. And if i can offer a small suggestion, since i do knwow assp and its limits very well, why don't you try haraka. And of course, if you use clamav don't forget to setup sanesecurity additional lists.

 

[KuJoe]

I don't know if you yo use ASSP v1 or v2, but if you need i have startup and munin script to manage v1. Regarding VPS use any classic 1.99 ovh will do. And if i can offer a small suggestion, since i do knwow assp and its limits very well, why don't you try haraka. And of course, if you use clamav don't forget to setup sanesecurity additional lists.

Thanks for the suggestions. I setup a SMTP remote proxy using ASSP v2 and Postfix, it's been working nicely so far but haven't had any real world use yet, just my own testing.

 

[splitice]

@KuJoe, any tutorials forthcomming? Sounds like an interesting setup.