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PureMessage for UNIX: configuring IP Blocker with third-party versions of Sendmail

Issue

Using the IP Blocker feature in PureMessage for UNIX with a third-party version of sendmail.

Please note that PureMessage for Unix includes a fully tested version of sendmail. Therefore, we only offer limited support for third-party installations of sendmail (see the note below for more details).

Sophos product and version

PureMessage for UNIX

What to do

  1. Check sendmail compilation:
    • sendmail needs to be compiled with the SOCKETMAP option. To check your existing sendmail installation, run the following command:

      sendmail -d0.1 -bt < /dev/null

    • If SOCKETMAP is listed in the response to this command, go to step 2.
    • If SOCKETMAP isn't listed, add the following line to the devtools/Site/site.config.m4 file in the sendmail distribution:

      APPENDDEF(`confMAPDEF', `-DSOCKETMAP')

    • Recompile Sendmail from source.
  2. Copy socketmap.m4

    A special m4 file, distributed with PureMessage Sendmail, must be added to the target sendmail installation. To install it:

    • Install PureMessage Sendmail using the PureMessage installer.
    • Copy $PREFIX/sendmail/cf/feature/sockmap.m4 from the PureMessage Sendmail installation to the corresponding directory in the target sendmail installation.
    • Uninstall PureMessage Sendmail using the PureMessage installer.
    • Add the following line to $PREFIX/sendmail/etc/mail/sendmail.mc:

      FEATURE(`sockmap',`inet:4466@localhost',,)

      If PureMessage is running on a different host, substitute localhost with the hostname of the PureMessage server. The hostname must match the one listed in etc/pmx.d/blocklist.conf.

      If sendmail is unable to contact the IP Blocker service, the message is passed through. For information on changing this default behavior, see comments in sockmap.m4.

  3. Once configuration is complete, Run pmx-config to update the config cache.
  4. Start the blocker daemon with pmx-blocker start
  5. Recompile sendmail.mc -> sendmail.cf
  6. Restart sendmail.

Note: As external/third-party versions of Sendmail are not quality assured for integration with PureMessage, Sophos reserves the right not to provide support for an issue that appears to be related to any such custom configuration. We may recommend that you install the PureMessage version of Sendmail for further resolution because custom Mail Transfer Agents (MTAs), such as versions of Sendmail provided by a third party, may not have the dependencies or the application programming interfaces (APIs) necessary to interface with the Sophos software.

If you need more information or guidance, then please contact technical support.