ISSUE:
How can I fine tune Declude to work faster and more effectively?
RESOLUTIONS:
There are a few different ways that you can fine tune Declude to work better and faster. Below are some examples:
Custom Filters:
Declude JunkMail Pro allows you to create your own filters. The Declude JunkMail filters, you can have the filters count towards the weighting system, and you can use actions of your choice. Warning: Filters (in Declude, IMail, SmarterMail, or anywhere else) can be very dangerous if you are not careful. For example, filtering for swear words can catch unrelated words, such as "assassin", "document", "chardonnay", "Mr. Hitchcock", etc. To learn more about how to create filters, please click the following link: http://www.declude.com/Version/Manuals/JunkMail/JM_4.0.8.asp
Declude Plug-Ins:
There are a few 3rd party, external plug-ins that you can use within Declude to combat more spam. The following plug-in is one most common plug-ins used with Declude:
Message Sniffer:
Message Sniffer is a program that will scan the content of E-mail to detect spam. It integrates with Declude JunkMail, and will help detect spam that might otherwise bypass other spam filters that only check the IP or E-mail headers. You can get the free version of this plug-in by clicking the following link: http://www.declude.com/version/MessageSniffer/sniffer-2-3.2.zip Even though the free version of Message Sniffer only updates about once a year, it is still a valuable tool that can be used to catch a lot of spam. If you prefer, you can purchase the paid version of Message Sniffer at the following link: http://www.armresearch.com/message-sniffer/ this version updates constantly.
To use Message Sniffer, create a directory under Declude called Sniffer. Extract the zip files to the sniffer directory. In your global.cfg uncomment the sniffer test and replace [path] with the actual path to your sniffer directory. In you $default$.junkmail uncomment the sniffer test.
To learn more about other plug-ins that can be used with Declude, please visit the following link: http://www.declude.com/Articles.asp?ID=100
Removing Dead Tests From Your Configuration:
Every time Declude scans an email, a request is sent to your DNS server for each test performed. When you have tests in your configuration files that are no longer valid, your DNS server will respond with “didn’t get a response”. The more invalid tests you have in your configuration, the slower your email server will become because your DNS server is wasting time waiting for dead databases to respond. To avoid this issue, be sure to check the list of valid spam databases at the following link and remove the invalid ones: http://www.declude.com/Articles.asp?ID=97
Changing the Number of Threads Declude is Running:
By default your Declude EVA is shipped and installed processing 15 threads. If your hardware is capable of processing more CPU then by all means let’s bump that number up. Any dual 2 GB processor should be able to handle many more threads. I suggest if your processor speed meets the mentioned criteria to change your threads from 15 to 75 to start, and move in increments of 10-15 thereafter. This can be done in your declude.cfg
Example:
THREADS 75
Save the file, then Start and stop your decludeproc service.
AVAFTERJM Directive:
Changing your directive AVAFTERJM (located in your virus.cfg) to ON from its default OFF can streamline your processing by eliminating Declude from scanning mail already determined to be junk mail for viruses. Our default is off for security reasons. If mail is determined to not be junk mail, remember to not send it directly to the spool for delivery it has yet to be scanned for viruses. We ask that you familiarize yourself with some of these operations for reasons like this.
PRESCAN Directive:
Changing this directive PRESCAN (located in your virus.cfg) to ON from its default will prescan HTML files. If no dangerous code is detected, the virus scanner will not get called. This can significantly cut down on CPU usage.