18.3.1 SEND_ACCESS and ORIG_SEND_ACCESS Tables

You can use the SEND_ACCESS and ORIG_SEND_ACCESS mapping tables to control who can or cannot send mail, receive mail, or both. The access checks have available a message’s envelope From: address and envelope To: addresses, and knowledge of what channel the message came in, and what channel it would attempt to go out.

If a SEND_ACCESS or ORIG_SEND_ACCESS mapping table exists, then for each recipient of every message passing through the MTA, the MTA will scan the table with a string of the following form (note the use of the vertical bar character, |):

src-channel|from-address|dst-channel|to-address

The src-channel is the channel queueing the message; from-address is the address of the message's originator; dst-channel is the channel to which the message will be queued; and to-address is the address to which the message is addressed. Use of an asterisk in any of these four fields causes that field to match any channel or address, as appropriate.

The addresses here are envelope addresses; that is, envelope From: address and envelope To: address. In the case of SEND_ACCESS, the envelope To: address is checked after rewriting, alias expansion, etc., have been performed; in the case of ORIG_SEND_ACCESS the originally specified envelope To: address is checked after rewriting, but before alias expansion.

If the search string matches a pattern (that is, the left-hand side of an entry in the table), then the resulting output of the mapping is checked. If the output contains the flags $Y or $y, then the enqueue for that particular To: address is permitted. If the output contains any of the flags $N, $n, $F, or $f, then the enqueue to that particular address is rejected. In the case of a rejection, optional rejection text may be supplied in the mapping output. This string will be included in the rejection error the MTA issues. If no string is output (other than the $N, $n, $F, or $f flag), then default rejection text will be used. For descriptions of additional flags, see 18.3 Access Control Mapping Table Flags.

Setting the MTA option ACCESS_ORCPT to 1 adds an additional vertical bar delimited field to the probe value passed to the SEND_ACCESS, ORIG_SEND_ACCESS, MAIL_ACCESS, and ORIG_MAIL_ACCESS mapping tables that contains the original recipient (ORCPT) address. If the message doesn't have an ORCPT address, the original unmodified RCPT TO: address is used instead. The default is 0, and the probe value is at the end:

src-channel|from-address|dst-channel|to-address|ORCPT_address

In the following example, mail sent from UNIX user agents such as mail, Pine, and so on, originates from the local, l, channel and messages to the Internet go out a TCP/IP channel of some sort. Suppose that local users, with the exception of the postmaster, are not allowed to send mail to the Internet but can receive mail from there. Then the SEND_ACCESS mapping table shown in the example below is one possible way to enforce this restriction. In the mapping table, the local host name is assumed to be sesta.com. In the channel name “tcp_*”, a wild card is used so as to match any possible TCP/IP channel name (for example, tcp_local).

Example 18–1 SEND_ACCESS Mapping Table

SEND_ACCESS

   *|postmaster@sesta.com|*|*    $Y
   *|*|*|postmaster@sesta.com    $Y
   l|*@sesta.com|tcp_*|*         $NInternet$ postings$ are$ not$ permitted

            

In the rejection message, dollar signs are used to quote spaces in the message. Without those dollar signs, the rejection would be ended prematurely and only read “Internet” instead of “Internet postings are not permitted.” Note that this example ignores other possible sources of “local” postings such as from PC-based mail systems or from POP or IMAP clients.

The client attempting to send the message determines whether the MTA rejection error text is actually presented to the user who attempted to send the message. If SEND_ACCESS is used to reject an incoming SMTP message, the MTA merely issues an SMTP rejection code including the optional rejection text; it is up to the sending SMTP client to use that information to construct a bounce message to send back to the original sender.