Mail

Spam Whitelists sent via email

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To assist users in the spam server transition Steve Fabian will be sending out copies of each user’s trusted sender lists (whitelist) today or tomorrow. You can paste these addresses into the new system’s white list.

Barracuda Whitelist Bulk Add Screen Grab

Since the new system uses different methods for classifying spam, it’s best to build your black list from scratch as needed. If you have concerns about your blacklist please contact computer support at support@chemistry.ohio-state.edu so we can address issues on a case-by-case basis.

Department SPAM filtering service changes

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It is necessary for the Chemistry department to transition to a new spam detection and prevention mechanism.

The Borderware Spam Appliance in use by the Chemistry department (as well as several other departments in the college) is nearing end-of-life (October 2010). In addition, Arts and Sciences began offering Microsoft Exchange to departments early this year. This service offering includes a separate spam filtering mechanism using a Barracuda Spam & Virus Firewall.

Chemistry’s cost-sharing partner departments who have used the Borderware Spam Appliance are rapidly shifting all of their mail services to the Microsoft Exchange server offered by Arts and Sciences. As a result the Chemistry department is faced with the choice to bear the entire burden of licensing fees or to find an alternative solution.

Continuing maintenance is cost prohibitive for a single department. Steve Fabian has worked with Arts and Sciences to test use of their Barracuda Spam & Virus Firewall in conjunction with our existing mail services- a cost-free and effective solution. We will be moving to this solution next week. The transition to the new spam system will be completed on the evening of Monday, 8/30/2010.

If you use the quarantine server to check for mail flagged as spam, to configure spam detection parameters, or to whitelist or blacklist email sender addresses there will be some changes. These are outlined below:

* Old web interface login: https://hormel.mps.ohio-state.edu – we will no longer use this URL
* New web interface login: https://mx1.asc.ohio-state.edu – after the transition, begin using this URL to manage your spam settings and view quarantined mail
* As with the old web interface login, you will be able to access the new web interface using your Chemistry Department username@chemistry.ohio-state.edu email address and password as your login credentials.
* Your BorderWare Trusted/Blocked Senders lists will NOT be automatically transferred to the Barracuda Spam and Virus Firewall. The two systems use different methods to classify spam, so it is necessary for you to rebuild these lists on our new system. We recognize that this might present an inconvenience and we appreciate your patience and understanding.
* Finally, the Arts and Sciences Barracuda system has the added benefit of receiving and classifying a substantially greater volume of mail. The system has already intercepted and learned to recognize over a million spam messages since going live. This will provide better detection and prevention of spam over time.

If you have any questions or would like assistance with this new service or managing the transition, please contact us at support@chemistry.ohio-state.edu

Mail Server Transitions questions

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Q. What do you mean about "time-stamped" folders? And Why?

A. The new mail server will be set up with new, clean folders (inbox, sent, drafts, trash, etc). 
Any existing mail you have on the old server needs to be moved over to the new server- 
So, to avoid any potential name collisions moved folders will be marked with a time stamp. 
This is true of all existing mail, not just Sent, Inbox, etc.

Your existing mail will be the only folders with time stamps- we're hoping that at your convenience
you can set up your preferred organizational structure on the new server.There has been little in 
standardization and quality control on mail services- both client and server side- over the last 
10 years. As such, things are a mess with many different naming conventions and no quota control- 
meaning there is more than 100 GB of existing mail to move. CHEMISTRY has a slow network card... 
so moving existing mail will take a long time. CHEMISTRY is on borrowed time- changing the network 
card could be disastrous. Mail is the final remaining use of this dying server.

It would be impossible for us to move existing mail while people are using the new mail server 
(writing to and syncing the same files/file system), so the alternative would be several days with 
no mail service at all. This was deemed unacceptable.


We're opting for least invasive, more cautious, and higher availability over maximum convenience.


Computer Support is open to conversations about the details, though as a team we've tried to think 
through all the possible ways to do this based on the current circumstances and mitigating the risk 
and hassle for users. Mail server transitions are the most complicated, exacerbated by user 
expectations for very little (if any) interruption of service.

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We'll post questions and answers here as people have them. Please feel free to ask.