Sendmail Anti-Spam Blacklist Feature

To reduce the amount of spam reaching user's inboxes, I made some modifications to the /etc/mail/sendmail.mc file on a Linux server running sendmail.

The sendmail.mc already had the line FEATURE(`blacklist_recipients')dnl. The blacklist_recipients feature turns on the ability to block incoming mail for certain recipient usernames, hostnames, or addresses. For example, you can block incoming mail to user nobody, host foo.mydomain.com, or guest@bar.mydomain.com. These specifications are put in the /etc/mail/access file.

Immediately below that line, I added the following lines to use the McFadden Associates E-Mail Blacklist, the Spamhaus Block List, and the Passive Spam Block List.

FEATURE(`dnsbl', `bl.csma.biz', `550 Spam Block: mail from $&{client_addr} refused - See http://bl.csma.biz/')dnl
FEATURE(`dnsbl', `sbl.spamhaus.org', `550 Spam Block: mail from $&{client_addr} refused - See http://www.spamhaus.org/sbl/')dnl
FEATURE(`dnsbl', `psbl.surriel.com', `550 Spam Block: mail from $&{client_addr} refused - see http://psbl.surriel.com/')dnl

I removed the "dnl" from the beginning of the following line, which "uncomments" the directive, to allow the system to accept email from users who have authenticated by a trusted mechanism defined by TRUST_AUTH_MECH (see Sendmail Authorization for Outgoing Email).

dnl FEATURE(delay_checks)dnl

I didn't want a user's email to be rejected because the user's system received a dynamically assigned IP address previously assigned to a system sending out spam, which I've seen happen previously. By using the delay_checks feature, you can have sendmail skip the check_mail and check_relay rulesets, if the sender has been authenticated by a "trusted" mechanism, such as by sending the user's userid and password to the server when sending email.

I then regenerated the sendmail.cf file from the sendmail.mc file and restarted sendmail with the commands below.

m4 /etc/mail/sendmail.mc > /etc/mail/sendmail.cf
/etc/init.d/sendmail restart

References:

1. Sendmail cf/README - Features
   sendmail.org
2. Sendmail cf/README - Anti-Spam Configuration Control sendmail.org
3. Passive Spam Block List (PSBL) Added
   MoonPoint Support
4. Sendmail Authorization for Outgoing Email
   MoonPoint Support
5. McFadden Associates E-Mail Blacklist
6. Spamhaus Block List
7. Passive Spam Block List

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