Bill Hayles wrote:
Hi, fellow Bill,

Greets..

;-)

*snip*

will eventually show up.. see below in re rDNS.

OK, not strictly Exim related, but one of my hobbyhorses. If you do
that, you block a lot of legitimate servers (including mine!).

Not so! I AM running Exim rDNS check, and did NOT block your direct OFF tahini response.

You(r server) passed the rDNS check for the IP from whence you connected: craybox.com .....on 80.35.22.107.

From *manual* inspection with 'host' and 'dig', one could argue that you should NOT have passed...

;-)

.... but Exim's rDNS checking is very 'wise' w/r not rejecting unless it has to..

Luckily, I find all major servers only block addresses allocated
dynamically; those allocated to fixed IP accounts are accepted.


Well - that IS the very point of an intelligent rDNS check.
And Exim's is by no means hard-edged.

Read the exceedingly well-documented source code in hosts.c


Also, this approach does not catch spam  mail from infected computers
(of which I get plenty).


Oh, but it DOES!  Near-as-dammit 100% of it.

It is fairly uncommon for a *server*, even a Windows 'server', running as an MTA on a public-facing fixed-IP with all the correct DNS credentials to be *allowed* to be infected for very long. These get noticed and fixed.

Wot becomes infected AND NOT noticed or corrected for *long* periods at a time are predominantly the ordinary residential or SME user's 'Win-desktop'.

Those are *nearly always* on dynamic IP with no PTR RR, hence no way to reverse that IP via a PTR RR to an A or MX record match.

Those WILL fail Exim's rDNS check. As they should do.

Easy enough to check.

'Present Day' - Turn it ON with a 'warn verb' and a log_message instead of a 'deny' in acl_smtp_connect:


warn # check only port 25, not users submitting on port 587
    condition   = ${if eq{$interface_port}{25}}
    !verify     = reverse_host_lookup
    log_message = rDNS fail for $sender_address

Check your logs after time 't' and see how many valid senders you would have rejected. Odds are, a whitelist of as few as a dozen will cover those few who have a problem .. all YEAR...

Not at all a hard to check historically, either -

Look at the old logs or even old message headers. Pick a few entries rejected late in the session - or worse - POST session .... ...and do a 'host <the IP>' on the suspect ones, then 'dig any .. ' on the returned <domain>.<tld>. IF there even IS one..

See how many .. or FEW ... resolve and match to have passed Exam's rDNS test. And how few - if any - 'legitimate' ones would have failed.

Or use Exim's debug to check 'right now'.

'bogus senders' are the first to fall by the wayside...

QED


Bill

--
## List details at http://lists.exim.org/mailman/listinfo/exim-users
## Exim details at http://www.exim.org/
## Please use the Wiki with this list - http://wiki.exim.org/

Reply via email to