Name

mail-deny -- block email from specific email-addresses or servers.

Synopsis

  mail-deny (reads from STDIN)

Description

mail-deny provides a simple way to block all email received from a specific email address or server IP.

The mail-deny was created to help get rid of annoying email from unwanted people or servers. mail-deny looks thru a user defined list of email addresses or IP addresses and if the message is from an unwanted source the header: 'X-mail-deny: YES' is appended to the headers.

Options

mail-deny does not accept any command line options. It it reads from standard input and then dumps the message back to standard out. With an extra header if needed.

Configuration

Script Configuration

The mail-deny requires the Perl module Net::SMTP and procmail need to be properly setup for the script to work.

There is very little script-based configuration. The following variables can be configured:

    $enableLog
      Found right after the usage comments in the main portion of the program.
      This variable enables/disables logging for all users that use the script.
    
   $server
      Found in the sendResponse sub program. This variable specifies which SMTP
      server to send responses thru. By default it is defined as "localhost".

   $domain
      Found in the sendResponse sub program. This variable specifies the domain
      name that the response is going to be sent from. By default it is defined
      as "localdomain".

   $mailTo
      Found in the sendResponse sub program. This variable specifies the email
      address that the response should be sent to. It is set to $_[0] (the
      email address from the ~/.mail-deny/blockaddr file). This should not be
      changed it is used to find the file in ~/.mail-deny/ that contains the
      message.

   $mailFrom
      Found in the sendResponse sub program. This variable specifies the email
      address that the response is from. By default this is defined as
      "postmaster\@$domain";

  $subject
      Found in the sendResponse sub program. This variable specifies the
      subject of the email response. By default this is defined as "Message to
      $username\@$domain not delivered".

User Configuration

This documentation is written assuming you are an administrator setting up a user's account.

• procmail setup
  
  The following lines need to be added to user's ~/.procmailrc put them BEFORE any other filtering or spam detection.

      # Used for mail-deny
      :0fw
      | /usr/local/bin/mail-deny
      
      :0:
      * ^X-mail-deny: YES
      $HOME/mail/denied
      # End of mail-deny

  The $HOME/mail/denied could be replaced with /dev/null. Also make sure that the path to mail-deny is correct.
  
  You will also need to make sure that the user's email is configured to use procmail.
  
  
• initialize user configuration
  
  mail-deny relies on 2 configuration files and a log file to work properly. Each time it is run mail-deny will create the following 3 files (and directory) if needed:

      ~/.mail-deny
      ~/.mail-deny/blockip
      ~/.mail-deny/blockaddr
      ~/.mail-deny/log

  Before customizing the user's configuration you can either send or wait for an email to show up - to create these files or run the following command from the user's account:

  
      echo "To: $(id -un)@localhost" | mail-deny

  All of the configuration files should be modifiable by the user - so that they can expand the configuration if later deemed necessary.
  
  
• customize user configuration
  
  The following are the files and a description of their function and format that each user can configure for use with mail-deny.
  • ~/.mail-deny/log
    This file contains the logs for all email processed. This only has information if $enableLog is set in this script.
    
    
  • ~/.mail-deny/blockip
    This file is used to block email received from a specific IP address. Careful with this if the IP is near right after a line beginning with "Received" the message will be blocked. One IP per line.
    
    
  • ~/.mail-deny/blockaddr
    This file is used to block email received from a specific email address. One email per line.
    
    
  Individual email responses

  To send a response to an email a user is blocking create a file in ~/.mail-deny/ with the same name as the email address that is being blocked.
  
  For example if you want to send a message to foo@somewhere.com create the file ~/.mail-deny/foo@somewhere.com With the body of the email message that will be sent to the person.
  
  NOTES:
  ** Emails are sent from postmaster@$domain - make sure the messages are appropriate.
  ** The message in the file will NOT be sent unless the email address of the same name is in ~/.mail-deny/blockaddr.

Report a Bug

If you find a bug please let me know email me at thompson@cns.uni.edu.

Download / Source

Copyright (C) 2003 Aaron Thompson
thompson@cns.uni.edu

This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by the Free Software Foundation; either version 2 of the License, or (at your option) any later version.

This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the GNU General Public License for more details.

You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License along with this program; if not, write to the Free Software Foundation, Inc., 59 Temple Place - Suite 330, Boston, MA 02111-1307, USA. or visit http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/gpl.html

Click here to view the source code online

Click here to download the script