> 
> What's the basis of this statement?  According to www.orbs.org,
> 
>       Your server was most likely to have been reported to us
>       because someone received junkmail via it and asked us to
>       check it.  However, this may not have happened. Someone
>       may have just received annoying mail and asked ORBS to test
>       the server, some people hunt for open relays to report to
>       ORBS and while we wish they wouldn't, it's hard to stop
>       them. In any case, we tested your server and found that
>       it did indeed have this problem, so we added it to our
>       database. Why it was reported isn't really important -
>       if it's an open relay, spammers will eventually find and
>       abuse it, so it's better to get the server fixed before
>       that happens.

I know that's what it says, but in my experience, ORBS walks through my
seubnet, IP by IP, and checks for open-relays.  About 2 IPs a day, I'd say.
Now, I'm on a UMN subnet, and since every University has had many
open-relays in the past, I'm sure they're checking everyone.  So, ORBS is
checking every umn.edu IP and actively searching for open-relays.  I don't
claim that they search every IP in the world, but they don't just look at
machines that have previously had open-relays.  They'll find a domain that
has had an open-relay and scan everything in that domain.  This is just my
personal experience, and you don't need to believe me if you don't want to.

> 
> Elsewhere on the site, I got the impression that the primary difference is
> that MAPS will remove servers when the admin says he's fixing it, while ORBS
> waits until they can verify that it actually has been fixed.

I think ORBS chooses the better path here.  Many people would say "oh yeah,
we'll fix it" and then do nothing because they're lazy.  Kudos to ORBS for 
checking up on them.

> 
> In any case, using both is trivial if exim is your MTA.  I couldn't comment
> on sendmail or qmail.

It's simple with sendmail as well.  Add the following to your sendmail.mc
and rebuild your sendmail.cf:

FEATURE(dnsbl,`rbl.maps.vix.com',` Mail from open-relay $&{client_addr} rejected by rbl.')
FEATURE(dnsbl,`relays.mail-abuse.org',` Mail from open-relay $&{client_addr} rejected by rss.')
FEATURE(dnsbl,`dul.maps.vix.com')

Gabe
-- 
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Gabe Turner				       |  	   X-President,
UNIX Systems Administrator,		       | Assoc. for Computing Machinery
U of M Supercomputing Institute for	       |    Univerisity of Minnesota
Digital Simulation and Advanced Computation    |       dopp at acm.cs.umn.edu

"Of all the systems of religion that ever were invented, there is no more 
 derogatory to the Almighty, more unedifiying to man, more repugnant to reason,
 and more contradictory to itself than this thing called Christianity." 
							     - Thomas Paine
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