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I'd like to get rid of the sc and ws bind and rbldnsd zone files from the SURBL web site and replace them with a note asking people to use rsync instead. Does anyone have any comments on this? We don't want people grabbing the zone files from the web site since rsync is so much more efficient.

I believe you have always said "DON'T GRAB THE RULES FROM THE WEBSITE". So just take them down if need be. However, here's some other thoughts:

1. Block bots that are proper with a robots.txt 2. Block improper bots with a bad_bots deny like this in Apache:

BrowserMatchNoCase ^Wget bad_bots #DEFAULT PERMISSIONS <Directory /> Order allow,deny Allow from all Options FollowSymlinks Includes AllowOverride None deny from env=bad_bots </Directory>

3. Recommend an autoresponder via email to email them out once a week or something to people using sendmail & vacation . I can give you quick examples if you want and this would let people test out the stuff but not overload the servers.

Makes sense to me. And if they don't stop, then deny their IP. Which is

what

I'm about to do to all those people still trying to download rules that haven't been on my server in almost a year!

Chris, a year is really nothing. Google and all these way back archives make things pretty long-lasting. If it's causing a problem with your server, put a text file that says the new location in it instead of the actual rules.

Regards, KAM