[Greylist-users] default timeout values - what do people suggest

[Tom Haapanen]

On 2004-02-24 11:25, Bob Beck wrote:

>What I'm currently using (based on
>personal experience and Evan's paper) is the following:
>
>#define PASSTIME (60 * 30) /* pass after first retry seen after 30 mins */
>#define GREYEXP (60 * 60 * 4) /* remove grey entries after 4 hours */
>#define WHITEEXP (60 * 60 * 24 * 36) /* remove white entries after 36 days */
>
>	I do 30 minutes rather than an hour, because since spamd is
>not actually the real mta, but rather a little minimalist daemon in a
>chroot jail, it doesn't actually pass the mail when it whitelists it. rather
>it adds an entry to a packet filter table that then allows the next retry
>to hit the real mta, rather than itself. I.E. first attempt, 450 - first one
>after 30 mins, 450, and you hit the real mta with the next retry.
>  
>

On one of the servers I run, I do as little as 6 minutes for PASSTIME, 
and it still filters out 90% of the spam.  6 minutes allows servers 
configured for retries at 10 or 15 minutes to get the message through on 
the second attempt.

I use 12 hours for GREYEXP, and I think even that is low.  Some servers 
(Yahoo, if I recall) may not try for 12+ hours ...

Tom