BlackMail
Frequently Asked Questions List

Version 0.29 dated 5 October 1998

If you have a question that is not covered in this list, please mail
me or send a question to the mailing list.

--

Q. Mail closes connection when you telnet to port 25.

A. Did you change MAILFILE to match your mailer daemon location?
   If you use smail with the program, you must use SMAIL in text mode,
   which is what the "-bs" option specifies.  Check your syslog messages.
   They're also helpful in to giving you clues as to what happened.
   If this still gets you nowhere, try Blackmail in commandline mode
   with ./blackmail -c this will determine whether Blackmail is starting
   at all - there could (unusually) be a compilation error causing a
   Blackmail to exit.


Q. How do I use BlackMail with QMail?

A. See README.qmail for details.


Q. Do I need the LOCHOST line in blackmail.conf ?

A. Run 'blackmail -t' and check that it reports your full address, if it
   does then you do not need to specify LOCHOST. If the reported address
   is something like jsm-net.(none) then it may be that you have not
   set a system domainname. Check the manpages for hostname,
   domainname and uname.


Q. I get the message "MAIL BOUNCE DETECTED" or "Rejected relay attempt".

A. Blackmail thinks someone is trying to use your system as an unauthorised
   mail relay and has bounced the mail. If the mail was actually ok then
   you probably have a configuration problem. See also the next question.


Q. When someone outside my domain sends mail to me, my system says
   "mail from outside our system cannot be sent outside our system".
   But, the recipient exists on my system as an alias.  What am I doing
   wrong?

A. In your ALLOWED_MAIL_SITES entries in blackmail.conf, make sure you
   list the site in wildcard format.  For instance, if I accept mail
   for "ook.bitgate.com", I would put:

   *bitgate.com

   in the list.  This would make it so anything coming to bitgate.com
   (in any case) would make it through to my system.  Then, the mailer
   would pass it through as a local host.  Note, you also want to
   include the IP address(es) of the site(s) that can connect to your
   mail port in the LOCALHOSTS section of blackmail.conf  For safety,
   include the entire IP block, unless you know what you're doing.


Q. I have multiple sites using my system as a mail forwarding agent and
   they all belong to me.  BlackMail, however, isn't accepting the mail
   for them.  What do I do?

A. Put the ip address of the mail site in the TREAT_AS_LOCALHOST entry list.
   Also, you may want to include the IP address as a wildcard for that site.
   This will allow the site to use you to forward E-Mail.

   For instance, if I want to forward mail for 192.168.125.0-254, I would
   put:

   192.168.125.*

   in the list.  DO NOT USE [0-254], as the wildcard matching routine
   will take "0-2" as the range.  For safety sake, use both the site name
   and the IP address.

Q. By default does blackmail stop mail relaying?

A. Yes, this is the behaviour:
   a) Connections from 'TREAT_AS_LOCALHOST' IPs can relay to anywhere.
   b) Connections from anywhere can relay to 'ALLOWED_MAIL_SITES'
   Other relay attempts are blocked.


Q. I want to run BlackMail without using inetd.  How do I do this?

A. blackmail -c


Q. I have Sendmail, and wish to use BlackMail with it instead of
   installing mail filter rules in sendmail.cf.  Can I use BlackMail
   instead of installing these rules?

A. Of course.  In the blackmail.conf file, simply change the line that says

   MAILFILE:/usr/bin/rsmtp -bs

   to say:

   MAILFILE:/usr/lib/sendmail -bs

   you will also need to have a second sendmail running in queue delively mode
   (e.g. add  /usr/lib/sendmail -q5  to one of your /etc/rc scripts.) 


Q. My system is not listed in the Configure options.

A. Try the most similar system.

   If you get it working that easily, send me a mail and I'll add your sytem
   to the options.

   If you need to add a new entry or modify the source code, please send
   me a patch and I'll hope to integrate it.


Q. Some mailing lists I used to receive ok are now bounced with log messages
   complaining about an invalid To: address.

A. It seems that some genuine mailing lists fail to specify a valid To:
   address which Blackmail rejects as a spam-signature and is usually
   correct.


Q. Blackmail is rejecting acceptable mail.
Q. Blackmail is letting spam through and I do not know why.

A. Recompile Blackmail with DEBUG and SYSLOG_ALL turned on and study the
   syslog messages.
   You should see what it is trying to do at each stage.
A. Another possibility is to use the DEBUG2 option in addition  - this will
   'soft' bounce the mail with a 4xx code so no mail will be lost. As above,
   you will need to study the syslog messages. Beware of the large amount of
   logs that will be generated.
A. Yet another option is to use the PASSIVE option. See the Makefile.


(Q & A from Thomas Trueten <thomas_trueten@cyberjunkie.com> )
Q. When using fetchmail as MTA, normally its necesary to fetch mail with an
   entry like this in ~/.fetchmailrc:

      poll pop.***.net protocol POP3 user USERNAME password PASSWORD is
      LOCALUSERNAME

     Blackmail will reject mail for LOCALUSERNAME but is happy with
     LOCALUSERNAME@your.domain.com.

A. Install the procmail package and change your ~/.procmailrc to:

    poll mail.***.net protocol POP3 user USERNAME password PASSWORD is
    LOCALUSERNAME@your.domain.com \
    mda "procmail -d LOCALUSERNAME"

    After this, procmail will flush received mail into your local Mailfolder
    and Blackmail has no problem to bounce back spammail.

    Next step:
    edit your Script which takes mail from your provider ex. /etc/ppp/ppp-up

    insert the line:
    # /etc/ppp/ppp-up
    (...)
    su LOCALUSERNAME -c 'fetchmail'


Q. BlackMail shuts the connection on my Solaris box immediately when I
   connect to it.  I swear by the book that I've got it installed right,
   and "blackmail -c" works.  What am I doing wrong?

A. More than likely, the Solaris you installed on your Sun box doesn't
   know Didley about "auth".  You need to add the following line to your
   /etc/services file:

        auth    113/tcp         ident

   Do that, and BlackMail will most likely fire up happily.

--
If you have any further questions or suggestions, please send them to the
mailing list or author/maintainers.

Good luck!
James Murray <jsm@jsm-net.demon.co.uk>

