ANTI-SPAM
ANTI-SPAM CONFIGURATION CONTROL
The primary anti-spam features available in sendmail are:
- Relaying is denied by default.
- Better checking on sender information.
- Access database.
- Header checks.
Relaying (transmission of messages from a site outside your host (class
{w}) to another site except yours) is denied by default. Note that this
changed in sendmail 8.9; previous versions allowed relaying by default.
If you really want to revert to the old behaviour, you will need to use
FEATURE(`promiscuous_relay').
You can allow certain domains to relay
through your server by adding their domain name or IP address to class
{R} using
RELAY_DOMAIN() and
RELAY_DOMAIN_FILE() or via the access database
(described below). The file consists (like any other file based class)
of entries listed on separate lines, e.g.,
sendmail.org
128.32
1:2:3:4:5:6:7
host.mydomain.com
If you use
FEATURE(`relay_entire_domain')
then any host in any of your local domains (that is, class {m})
will be relayed (that is, you will accept mail either to or from any
host in your domain).
You can also allow relaying based on the MX records of the host
portion of an incoming recipient address by using
FEATURE(`relay_based_on_MX')
For example, if your server receives a recipient of user@domain.com
and domain.com lists your server in its MX records, the mail will be
accepted for relay to domain.com. Note that this will stop spammers
from using your host to relay spam but it will not stop outsiders from
using your server as a relay for their site (that is, they set up an
MX record pointing to your mail server, and you will relay mail addressed
to them without any prior arrangement).
Along the same lines,
FEATURE(`relay_local_from')
will allow relaying if the sender specifies a return path (i.e.
MAIL FROM: <user@domain>) domain which is a local domain. This a
dangerous feature as it will allow spammers to spam using your mail
server by simply specifying a return address of user@your.domain.com.
It should not be used unless absolutely necessary.
A slightly better solution is
FEATURE(`relay_mail_from')
which allows relaying if the mail sender is listed as RELAY in the
access map. If an optional argument `domain' is given, the domain
portion of the mail sender is also checked to allowing relaying.
This option only works together with the tag From: for the LHS of
the access map entries
(see below:
Finer control...).
If source routing is used in the recipient address (i.e.
RCPT TO: <user%site.com@othersite.com>), sendmail will check
user@site.com for relaying if othersite.com is an allowed relay host
in either class {R}, class {m} if FEATURE(`relay_entire_domain') is used,
or the access database if FEATURE(`access_db') is used.
To prevent
the address from being stripped down, use:
FEATURE(`loose_relay_check')
If you think you need to use this feature, you probably do not. This
should only be used for sites which have no control over the addresses
that they provide a gateway for. Use this FEATURE with caution as it
can allow spammers to relay through your server if not setup properly.
NOTICE: It is possible to relay mail through a system which the anti-relay
rules do not prevent: the case of a system that does use
FEATURE(`nouucp',`nospecial') (system A)
and relays local messages to a mail hub (e.g., via
LOCAL_RELAY or LUSER_RELAY) (system B).
If system B doesn't use
FEATURE(`nouucp')
at all, addresses of the form
<example.net!user@local.host> would be relayed to <user@example.net>.
System A doesn't recognize `!' as an address separator and therefore
forwards it to the mail hub which in turns relays it because it came from
a trusted local host. So if a mailserver allows UUCP (bang-format)
addresses, all systems from which it allows relaying should do the same
or reject those addresses.
As of 8.9, sendmail will refuse mail if the MAIL FROM: parameter has
an unresolvable domain (i.e., one that DNS, your local name service,
or special case rules in ruleset 3 cannot locate).
If you want to
continue to accept such domains, e.g., because you are inside a
firewall that has only a limited view of the Internet host name space
(note that you will not be able to return mail to them unless you have
some "smart host" forwarder), use
FEATURE(`accept_unresolvable_domains')
sendmail will also refuse mail if the MAIL FROM: parameter is not
fully qualified (i.e., contains a domain as well as a user). If you
want to continue to accept such senders, use
FEATURE(`accept_unqualified_senders')
Setting the DaemonPortOptions modifier 'u' overrides the default behavior,
i.e., unqualified addresses are accepted even without this FEATURE. If
this FEATURE is not used, the DaemonPortOptions modifier 'f' can be used
to enforce fully qualified addresses.
An ``access'' database can be created to accept or reject mail from
selected domains. For example, you may choose to reject all mail
originating from known spammers. To enable such a database, use
FEATURE(`access_db')
The FEATURE macro can accept a second parameter giving the key file
definition for the database; for example
FEATURE(`access_db', `hash /etc/mail/access')
Remember, since /etc/mail/access is a database, after creating the text
file as described below, you must use makemap to create the database
map. For example:
makemap hash /etc/mail/access < /etc/mail/access
The table itself uses e-mail addresses, domain names, and network
numbers as keys. For example,
spammer@aol.com REJECT
cyberspammer.com REJECT
192.168.212 REJECT
would refuse mail from spammer@aol.com, any user from cyberspammer.com
(or any host within the cyberspammer.com domain), and any host on the
192.168.212.* network.
The value part of the map can contain:
OK Accept mail even if other rules in the
running ruleset would reject it, for example,
if the domain name is unresolvable.
RELAY Accept mail addressed to the indicated domain or
received from the indicated domain for relaying
through your SMTP server. RELAY also serves as
an implicit OK for the other checks.
REJECT Reject the sender or recipient with a general
purpose message.
DISCARD Discard the message completely using the
$#discard mailer. If it is used in check_compat,
it affects only the designated recipient, not
the whole message as it does in all other cases.
This should only be used if really necessary.
### any text where ### is an RFC 821 compliant error code and
"any text" is a message to return for the command.
The string should be quoted to avoid surprises,
e.g., sendmail may remove spaces otherwise.
ERROR:### any text
as above, but useful to mark error messages as such.
ERROR:D.S.N:### any text
where D.S.N is an RFC 1893 compliant error code
and the rest as above.
For example:
cyberspammer.com ERROR:"550 We don't accept mail from spammers"
okay.cyberspammer.com OK
sendmail.org RELAY
128.32 RELAY
1:2:3:4:5:6:7 RELAY
[127.0.0.3] OK
[1:2:3:4:5:6:7:8] OK
would accept mail from okay.cyberspammer.com, but would reject mail from
all other hosts at cyberspammer.com with the indicated message. It would
allow relaying mail from and to any hosts in the sendmail.org domain, and
allow relaying from the 128.32.*.* network and the IPv6 1:2:3:4:5:6:7:*
network. The latter two entries are for checks against ${client_name} if
the IP address doesn't resolve to a hostname (or is considered as "may be
forged").
Warning: if you change the RFC 821 compliant error code from the default
value of 550, then you should probably also change the RFC 1893 compliant
error code to match it. For example, if you use
user@example.com 450 mailbox full
the error returned would be "450 4.0.0 mailbox full" which is wrong.
Use "450 4.2.2 mailbox full" or "ERROR:4.2.2:450 mailbox full"
instead.
Note, UUCP users may need to add hostname.UUCP to the access database
or class {R}. If you also use:
FEATURE(`relay_hosts_only')
then the above example will allow relaying for sendmail.org, but not
hosts within the sendmail.org domain. Note that this will also require
hosts listed in class {R} to be fully qualified host names.
You can also use the access database to block sender addresses based on
the username portion of the address. For example:
FREE.STEALTH.MAILER@ ERROR:550 Spam not accepted
Note that you must include the @ after the username to signify that
this database entry is for checking only the username portion of the
sender address.
If you use:
FEATURE(`blacklist_recipients')
then you can add entries to the map for local users, hosts in your
domains, or addresses in your domain which should not receive mail:
badlocaluser@ ERROR:550 Mailbox disabled for this username
host.mydomain.com ERROR:550 That host does not accept mail
user@otherhost.mydomain.com ERROR:550 Mailbox disabled for this recipient
This would prevent a recipient of badlocaluser@mydomain.com, any
user at host.mydomain.com, and the single address
user@otherhost.mydomain.com from receiving mail. Please note: a
local username must be now tagged with an @ (this is consistent
with the check of the sender address, and hence it is possible to
distinguish between hostnames and usernames). Enabling this feature
will keep you from sending mails to all addresses that have an
error message or REJECT as value part in the access map. Taking
the example from above:
spammer@aol.com REJECT
cyberspammer.com REJECT
Mail can't be sent to spammer@aol.com or anyone at cyberspammer.com.
There is also a ``Realtime Blackhole List'' run by the MAPS project
at http://maps.vix.com/. This is a database maintained in DNS of
spammers. To use this database, use
FEATURE(`dnsbl')
This will cause sendmail to reject mail from any site in the
Realtime Blackhole List database. This default DNS blacklist,
blackholes.mail-abuse.org, is a service offered by the Mail Abuse
Prevention System (MAPS). As of July 31, 2001, MAPS is a subscription
service, so using that network address won't work if you haven't
subscribed.
Contact MAPS to subscribe (
http://mail-abuse.org/
).
You can specify an alternative RBL server to check by specifying an
argument to the FEATURE. The default error message is
Mail from IP-ADDRESS refused by blackhole site SERVER
where IP-ADDRESS and SERVER are replaced by the appropriate
information. A second argument can be used to specify a different
text. By default, temporary lookup failures are ignored and hence
cause the connection not to be rejected by the DNS based rejection
list. This behavior can be changed by specifying a third argument,
which must be either `t' or a full error message. For example:
FEATURE(`dnsbl', `dnsbl.example.com', `',
`"451 Temporary lookup failure for " $&{client_addr} " in dnsbl.example.com"')
If `t' is used, the error message is:
451 Temporary lookup failure of IP-ADDRESS at SERVER
where IP-ADDRESS and SERVER are replaced by the appropriate
information.
This FEATURE can be included several times to query different
DNS based rejection lists, e.g., the dial-up user list (see
http://mail-abuse.org/dul/
).
Notice: to avoid checking your own local domains against those
blacklists, use the access_db feature and add:
Connect:10.1 OK
Connect:127.0.0.1 RELAY
to the access map, where 10.1 is your local network. You may
want to use "RELAY" instead of "OK" to allow also relaying
instead of just disabling the DNS lookups in the backlists.
The features described above make use of the check_relay, check_mail,
and check_rcpt rulesets. If you wish to include your own checks,
you can put your checks in the rulesets Local_check_relay,
Local_check_mail, and Local_check_rcpt. For example if you wanted to
block senders with all numeric usernames (i.e. 2312343@bigisp.com),
you would use Local_check_mail and the regex map:
LOCAL_CONFIG
Kallnumbers regex -a@MATCH ^[0-9]+$
LOCAL_RULESETS
SLocal_check_mail
# check address against various regex checks
R$* $: $>Parse0 $>3 $1
R$+ < @ bigisp.com. > $* $: $(allnumbers $1 $)
R@MATCH $#error $: 553 Header Error
These rules are called with the original arguments of the corresponding
check_* ruleset. If the local ruleset returns $#OK, no further checking
is done by the features described above and the mail is accepted. If the
local ruleset resolves to a mailer (such as $#error or $#discard), the
appropriate action is taken. Otherwise, the results of the local
rewriting are ignored.
Finer control by using tags for the LHS of the access map
Read this section only if the options listed so far are not sufficient
for your purposes. There is now the option to tag entries in the
access map according to their type. Three tags are available:
Connect: connection information (${client_addr}, ${client_name})
From: envelope sender
To: envelope recipient
If the required item is looked up in a map, it will be tried first
with the corresponding tag in front, then (as fallback to enable
backward compatibility) without any tag. For example,
From:spammer@some.dom REJECT
To:friend.domain RELAY
Connect:friend.domain OK
Connect:from.domain RELAY
From:good@another.dom OK
From:another.dom REJECT
This would deny mails from spammer@some.dom but you could still
send mail to that address even if FEATURE(`blacklist_recipients')
is enabled. Your system will allow relaying to friend.domain, but
not from it (unless enabled by other means). Connections from that
domain will be allowed even if it ends up in one of the DNS based
rejection lists. Relaying is enabled from from.domain but not to
it (since relaying is based on the connection information for
outgoing relaying, the tag Connect: must be used; for incoming
relaying, which is based on the recipient address, To: must be
used). The last two entries allow mails from good@another.dom but
reject mail from all other addresses with another.dom as domain
part.
Delay all checks
By using
FEATURE(`delay_checks')
the rulesets check_mail and check_relay
will not be called when a client connects or issues a MAIL command,
respectively. Instead, those rulesets will be called by the check_rcpt
ruleset; they will be skipped if a sender has been authenticated using
a "trusted" mechanism, i.e., one that is defined via TRUST_AUTH_MECH().
If check_mail returns an error then the RCPT TO command will be rejected
with that error. If it returns some other result starting with $# then
check_relay will be skipped. If the sender address (or a part of it) is
listed in the access map and it has a RHS of OK or RELAY, then check_relay
will be skipped. This has an interesting side effect: if your domain is
my.domain and you have
my.domain RELAY
in the access map, then all e-mail with a sender address of
<user@my.domain> gets through, even if check_relay would reject it
(e.g., based on the hostname or IP address). This allows spammers
to get around DNS based blacklist by faking the sender address. To
avoid this problem you have to use tagged entries:
To:my.domain RELAY
Connect:my.domain RELAY
if you need those entries at all (class {R} may take care of them).
FEATURE(`delay_checks') can take an optional argument:
FEATURE(`delay_checks', `friend')
enables spamfriend test
FEATURE(`delay_checks', `hater')
enables spamhater test
If such an argument is given, the recipient will be looked up in the access
map (using the tag To:). If the argument is `friend', then the other
rulesets will be skipped if the recipient address is found and has RHS
spamfriend. If the argument is `hater', then the other rulesets will be
applied if the recipient address is found and has RHS spamhater.
This allows for simple exceptions from the tests, e.g., by activating
the spamfriend option and having
To:abuse@ SPAMFRIEND
in the access map, mail to abuse@localdomain will get through. It is
also possible to specify a full address or an address with +detail:
To:abuse@abuse.my.domain SPAMFRIEND
To:me+abuse@ SPAMFRIEND
Header Checks
You can also reject mail on the basis of the contents of headers.
This is done by adding a ruleset call to the 'H' header definition command
in sendmail.cf. For example, this can be used to check the validity of
a Message-ID: header:
LOCAL_RULESETS
HMessage-Id: $>CheckMessageId
SCheckMessageId
R< $+ @ $+ > $@ OK
R$* $#error $: 553 Header Error
The alternative format:
HSubject: $>+CheckSubject
that is, $>+ instead of $>, gives the full Subject: header including
comments to the ruleset (comments in parentheses () are stripped
by default).
A default ruleset for headers which don't have a specific ruleset
defined for them can be given by:
H*: $>CheckHdr
Notice: All rules act on tokens as explained in doc/op/op.{me,ps,txt}.
That may cause problems with simple header checks due to the
tokenization. It might be simpler to use a regex map and apply it
to $&{currHeader}.
After all of the headers are read, the check_eoh ruleset will be called for
any final header-related checks. The ruleset is called with the number of
headers and the size of all of the headers in bytes separated by $|. One
example usage is to reject messages which do not have a Message-Id:
header. However, the Message-Id: header is *NOT* a required header and is
not a guaranteed spam indicator. This ruleset is an example and should
probably not be used in production.
LOCAL_CONFIG
Kstorage macro
LOCAL_RULESETS
HMessage-Id: $>CheckMessageId
SCheckMessageId
# Record the presence of the header
R$* $: $(storage {MessageIdCheck} $@ OK $) $1
R< $+ @ $+ > $@ OK
R$* $#error $: 553 Header Error
Scheck_eoh
# Check the macro
R$* $: < $&{MessageIdCheck} >
# Clear the macro for the next message
R$* $: $(storage {MessageIdCheck} $) $1
# Has a Message-Id: header
R< $+ > $@ OK
# Allow missing Message-Id: from local mail
R$* $: < $&{client_name} >
R< > $@ OK
R< $=w > $@ OK
# Otherwise, reject the mail
R$* $#error $: 553 Header Error
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