The Steussy Ranch

For the last two or three years, I’ve been running a shadow account through Google’s Gmail. I’ve been doing it primary as a way to filter spam off-site while keeping all mail here on my server.

In running a small business, I can’t trust spam filters. What if it decides to trash an email from a new, important client? Or, more likely, an important translator running off an email account on a spotty server. And Google has run an exemplary spam filtering program, which I use primary to feed to my smartphones.

But as with all things on the internet, nothing stays the same. On Monday, we started receiving notices from Google that the Steussy.com server was going to be listed as a spam server. This would mean that no mail from our server would be delivered to Gmail addresses. While this would not affect client emails, a lot of friends and almost half of our translators run their mail through Google.

I spent a harried morning putting together the standard package for spam filtering for a Linux server. Even the standard installation for a plain vanilla setup like mine required handcoding and tweeking just to get it to work (Amavis-new, ClamAV and Spamassassin). After a day, I had the installation complete. All spam now goes into its own email account for later review, and we get a spam-free output directly from the server.

On a non-busy day like the last twenty-four hours, we get about 50 non-spam emails (“ham”). We also logged some 802 spam messages and 25 virus-laden emails. Since all of those were being forward unfiltered to Gmail, I can understand why an algorithm suddenly decided that we might be a spam server. Testing today on deliveries to Gmail show that email is being delivered. No problem.