sendmail, 4th Edition

The access Database

The access database was introduced in V8.9 sendmail, and improved upon in V8.10. It provides a single, central database with rules to accept, reject, and discard messages based on the sender name, address, or IP address. It is enabled with the FEATURE(access_db).^[130]

For example, consider an access database with the following contents:

From:[e-mail]   OK
From:spam.com              REJECT

Here, mail from postmaster at the site spam.com is accepted, whereas mail from any other sender at that site is rejected.

Note that this example uses V8.10 syntax. Next, we will describe the access database using the old V8.9 syntax, and then describe the V8.10 and V8.12 updates.

^{[130] *} Another feature, FEATURE(blacklist_recipients), allows recipients to also be rejected. Yet another, FEATURE(delay_checks), allows even finer tuning based on the desire of individual recipients.