That answers the performance part of my question, but it still leaves me
wondering. I'm familiar with NAV as a tool to protect workstations. But,
workstations don't listen for SMTP connections on port 25, and then pass
than information along unopened. Would a virus even be recognizable to a
such software before a message has had it's attachments unpacked by a mail
reader? I've seen antivirus software advertised specifically for an Exchange
server, but I don't know if this is more of a marketing issue or that mail
server protection is conceptually different from workstation protection.

= Marc Louis Stober
= Systems Manager
= The United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism
= [log in to unmask]
= http://www.uscj.org

> -----Original Message-----
> From: LISTSERV give-and-take forum
> [mailto:[log in to unmask]]On Behalf Of Jacob Haller
> Sent: Wednesday, August 16, 2000 9:37 AM
> To: [log in to unmask]
> Subject: Re: any virus scanning for LISTSERV / LSMTP ?
>
>
> >Mark:
> >
> >I'll admit freely that I don't have enough information to answer your
> >questions about SMTP vs. LSMTP and how NAV 2000 works procedurally.  NAV
> >2000 has identified one virus-laden e-mail file in the SMTP/LSMTP system
> >since July 1, 2000, and that file was stopped from distribution.
> >
> >As for performance, we only move about 1 - 1.5 million messages a month,
> >usually in batches of a few hundred to a few thousand at a time.  So,
> >performance isn't really an issue for us; messages are processed quickly
> >and the mail server is idle most of the time.
>
> I don't have any first-hand knowledge of Norton Antivirus and the
> portion of their website devoted to the product seems singularly
> devoid of information on what it's actually supposed to do, apart
> from a vague impression that it has something to do with getting
> viruses.  (I may just not have looked hard enough.)  So I can't speak
> specifically as to how NAV works or what effect it would have on
> performance.
>
> Generally speaking, though, I'd say that you'd have to expect that
> any antivirus system that is to intercept incoming viruses would have
> _some_ effect on performance.  It should be possible to minimize that
> effect if you can configure the software to only intercept and scan
> incoming messages, though.  This would leave LSMTP to send outgoing
> messages unimpeded, which is really where you see the biggest
> performance gains when you use LSMTP.  From a virus security
> standpoint this shouldn't be a problem, either, as in order for
> LISTSERV to distribute a message containing a virus it first has to
> receive a message with a virus.
>
> I'm speaking fairly theoretically here so some testing of any system
> you are thinking about using is in order, but the above seems correct
> to me.  Does anyone else have any experience with this?
>
> Thanks,
> --
> Jacob Haller, Technical Support
> L-Soft international, Inc
> http://www.lsoft.com/