Sendmail and backup MX

[John Rudd]

On Sep 26, 2005, at 15:41, Scott Silva wrote:

> John Rudd spake the following on 9/26/2005 2:37 PM:
>> On Sep 26, 2005, at 12:13, Scott Silva wrote:
>>
>>> Not a MailScanner issue, but ...
>>> Does anybody have any simple solutions for sendmail that only lets 
>>> the
>>> backup MX accept mail when the primary is down?
>>> I don't want to re-invent the wheel if someone already has a working
>>> solution.
>>>
>>
>> Get mimedefang.  Run it on your backup.  www.mimedefang.org
>>
>>
>> There's a function it has called "filter_recipient" which you have to
>> write (in /etc/mail/mimedefang-filter), and which you have to turn on 
>> in
>> the startup script.  Here's what I would suggest:
>>
>>
>> sub filter_recipient {
>>    my ($recip, $sender, $ip, $host, $first, $helo, $rcpt_mailer,
>>        $rcpt_host, $rcpt_addr) = @_;
>>    my ($type, $msg);
>>
>>    # if the recipient is in the domain I secondary
>>    if ($recip =~ /\@primary\.domain\.name\b/i) {
>>
>>       # verify a known recipient on the primary
>>       ($type, $msg) = md_check_against_smtp_server($sender,
>>                         $recip,                # known recipient
>>                         "secondary.host.name", # your backup/MX server
>>                         "primary.host.name");  # the primary mail 
>> server
>>
>>       if ($type  eq "REJECT") {
>>          # the recipient doesn't exist, hard reject even if
>>          # the primary is up
>>          return ('REJECT', "Unknown Recipient");
>>          }
>>       elsif ($type eq "CONTINUE") {
>>          # if you can verify it, then the primary is up
>>          # TEMPFAIL (or REJECT) the message
>>          return ('TEMPFAIL', "Only call me when the primary is down");
>>          }
>>       else {
>>          # else, primary is down or having problems
>>          return ('CONTINUE', "OK");
>>          }
>>       }
>>    }
>>
> I'll look at this this week!
> Looks like it will do the equivalent of milter-ahead also.
> Thanks!!
>

Yes, you can also use this as a means of replacing milter-ahead.  You 
can also implement greylisting with it.

Though, be careful.  It will detect any virus scanners you have 
installed, and the default mimedefang-filter will try to run them.  
That can put a lot of extra work on your machine, since you'll be doing 
it both in mimedefang and mailscanner.  So, when you do the "configure" 
in mimedefang, you should look and see  what you need to do to turn off 
whatever virus scanners you're using.

(there's also a way to turn them off in mimedefang-filter, OR you can 
simple comment out the parts of "filter_begin", "filter", 
"filter_multipart", and "filter_end" which duplicate mailscanner 
functionality; virus scanning is in filter_begin, attachment 
filename/etc. checking is in filter and filter_multipart, and spam 
assassin is in filter_end)

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