Q-n-A about access.db w/ sendmail 8.11

[someone_4]

Hello everyone
I am looking around at docs that have to do with the access.db feature on sendmail 8.11. I have a few differnt things as how to set it up. And I was wondering if someone could clear this up for me.

I understand the REJECT, OK , RELAY ..
But if you want to OK from a whole ip range do you do
192.168.10.* OK
or
192.168.10. OK

makemap:
When you do a make map do you use

makemap dbm /etc/mail/access < /etc/mail/access
or

makemap hash /etc/mail/access < /etc/mail/access

the sendmail.cf file has the following line.

# Access list database (for spam stomping)
Kaccess dbm /etc/mail/access

But I have read to change the dbm to hash and use hash.
What is the differnce and what is the best way to get his to work.

I am just having trouble with this freature and cant get it to work. I am still getting relaying denied on some hosts. And then I look for docs but they just contradict each other on how to make the access.db and how to set it up. I am used to the nice and easy 8.8.3 LOCALIP , SPAMMER, DENIEDIP and so on.

All help and advice on this is welcome.

Thanks
~ Richard

[Christopher Caldwell · Accepted solution]

For aggregates, I use
A.B.C no terminating .
-test your access rules, YMMV

if cf says dbm, use dbm. hash is newer than dbm. You can only use hash if sendmail was compiled with the NEWDB option (yours probably was). DBM can only be used if sendmail was compiled with NDBM (yours probably was). To test type
$sendmail -d0.1 you < /dev/null

For ease, I'd use dbm unless you have a scaling issue to deal with (I use dbm on a system with > 7000 accounts and significant mail volume).

[Fred Martin_1]

I'm not sure how different your version is from 8.9.3, but I set up sendmail 8.9.3 not to relay, but wanted my own network to be able to relay. My access file looks like this:

192.168.10 RELAY

Which denies relay to anyone accept my own hosts.

Fred