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authorpeter <peter@pkgsrc.org>2005-06-28 16:48:52 +0000
committerpeter <peter@pkgsrc.org>2005-06-28 16:48:52 +0000
commit6717cbd3237572f51073688d9a33b2a9262228d6 (patch)
tree7e08efbca55bd0ed4cbc2f217ace0fb00657ba6e /mail/spamd
parente5448216e0e8ce9d883c9a0de9b48dcba96125a2 (diff)
downloadpkgsrc-6717cbd3237572f51073688d9a33b2a9262228d6.tar.gz
Improve the description, text from http://www.benzedrine.cx/relaydb.html
Suggested by Thomas Klausner.
Diffstat (limited to 'mail/spamd')
-rw-r--r--mail/spamd/DESCR17
1 files changed, 13 insertions, 4 deletions
diff --git a/mail/spamd/DESCR b/mail/spamd/DESCR
index 6364d984a81..122d50b76bc 100644
--- a/mail/spamd/DESCR
+++ b/mail/spamd/DESCR
@@ -1,4 +1,13 @@
-spamd is a fake sendmail(8)-like daemon which rejects false mail. If the
-pf packet filter (security/pflkm) is configured to redirect port 25 (SMTP)
-to this daemon, it will attempt to waste the time and resources of
-the spam sender. Imported from the OpenBSD 3.7 sources.
+Tarpits like spamd are fake SMTP servers, which accept connections but don't
+deliver mail. Instead, they keep the connections open and reply very slowly.
+If the peer is patient enough to actually complete the SMTP dialogue (which
+will take ten minutes or more), the tarpit returns a 'temporary error' code
+(4xx), which indicates that the mail could not be delivered successfully and
+that the sender should keep the mail in his queue and retry again later.
+If the spammer does, the same procedure repeats. Until, after several attempts,
+wasting both his queue space and socket handles for several days, the spammer
+gives up. The resources the spamd server has to waste to do this are minimal.
+
+If the sender is badly configured, an uncooperative recipient might actually
+delay his entire queue handling for several minutes each time he connects to
+the tarpit. And many spammers use badly configured open relays.