Sendmail 8.8.6 relay fix

[Mark Hoensheid_2]

OK.. I have been trying to prevent our email system from being used as a relay by spammers. I cannot upgrade at this time, so that will not help. I am using the spam rule_sets with no success. I found an additional rule_set to add to my .cf and it works. I can send mail out but everything coming in is rejected and recognised as being spam mail.

Here is the rule_set I added.
# anything terminating locally is ok
R< $+ @ $=w > $@ OK
R< $+ @ $=R > $@ OK

# anything originating locally is ok
R$* $: $(dequote "" $&{client_name} $)
R$=w $@ OK
R$=R $@ OK
R$@ $@ OK

# anything else is bogus
R$* $#error $: "550 Relaying Denied"

Again, I can send mail but everything coming in appears to be rejected and the 550 relaying denied code is given.

Any help would be greatily appreciated and points will be assigned.

Frustrated in Michigan ;-)

[Clemens van Everdingen]

Hi,

see this thread:

http://forums.itrc.hp.com/cm/QuestionAnswer/1,,0x4c6d50011d20d6118ff40090279cd0f9,00.html

C.

[someone_4 · Accepted solution]

Hi Mark,
I have been in your boat before patching and fixing sendmail 8.8.6. I was not able to upgrade to 8.9.3 (that has some great spam features) on one system due to some ldap problems. So I have had to patch and repatch 8.8.6. I have been blacklistend as an open relay and theese are the changes that have saved me. I have attached what I think are all the fixes that I have added. They are all for Ruleset 98. Give it a try.

Back up your sendmail.cf file add the changes I have stated and restart sendmail and give it a try. Good luck.

you might also consider setting some some extra anti spamming such as:

## BEGIN anti-spamming
## file containing full e-mail addresses of well-known spammers
F{Spammer} /etc/mail/Spammer



~Richard

[Mark Hoensheid_2]

Richard,

Thanks for your post. I applied your suggestions to my .cf file as you noted and it worked! I passed the spam test from the blacklist site and are able to send & receive email. After quickly looking at your rule_set, it looked the same as to what was already in the .cf file but I guess not. Thanks again....

Till next time..

[someone_4]

Mark,
I dont even know where to begin in telling you how many times I have had to "tweak" my sendmail.cf file to close the relay.

I get tweaks from HP, sendmail.org , the forum here. And fankly I have no idea what is differnt.But I totaly understand your frustration when you are trying to fix it without being able to upgrade to another version of sendmail and then the good feeling you get when you fix it. =)

May I also say that the tweaks we added will only take us soo far. One day we will have to upgrade because no one will be around to help us write new rule sets for 8.8.6. That will be the day huh?? Well I am glad that everything worked for you.

~ Richard