SPAMD(8)                OpenBSD System Manager's Manual               SPAMD(8)

NAME
     spamd - spam deferral daemon

SYNOPSIS
     spamd [-45bdv] [-B maxblack] [-c maxcon] [-G passtime:greyexp:whiteexp]
           [-h hostname] [-l address] [-M address] [-n name] [-p port]
           [-S secs] [-s secs] [-w window] [-Y synctarget] [-y synclisten]

DESCRIPTION
     spamd is a fake sendmail(8)-like daemon which rejects false mail.  It is
     designed to be very efficient so that it does not slow down the receiving
     machine.

     spamd considers sending hosts to be of three types:

     blacklisted hosts are redirected to spamd and tarpitted i.e. they are
     communicated with very slowly to consume the sender's resources.  Mail is
     rejected with either a 450 or 550 error message.  A blacklisted host will
     not be allowed to talk to a real mail server.

     whitelisted hosts do not talk to spamd.  Their connections are instead
     sent to a real mail server, such as sendmail(8).

     greylisted hosts are redirected to spamd, but spamd has not yet decided
     if they are likely spammers.  They are given a temporary failure message
     by spamd when they try to deliver mail.

     When spamd is run in default mode, it will greylist connections from new
     hosts.  Depending on its configuration, it may choose to blacklist the
     host or, if the checks described below are met, eventually whitelist it.
     When spamd is run in blacklist-only mode, using the -b flag, it will con-
     sult a pre-defined set of blacklist addresses to decide whether to tarpit
     the host or not.

     When a sending host talks to spamd, the reply will be stuttered.  That
     is, the response will be sent back a character at a time, slowly.  For
     blacklisted hosts, the entire dialogue is stuttered.  For greylisted
     hosts, the default is to stutter for the first 10 seconds of dialogue on-
     ly.

     The options are as follows:

     -4      For blacklisted entries, return error code 450 to the spammer
             (default).

     -5      For blacklisted entries, return error code 550 to the spammer.

     -B maxblack
             The maximum number of concurrent blacklisted connections to stut-
             ter at.  This value may not be greater than maxcon (see below).
             The default is maxcon - 100.  When this value is exceeded new
             blacklisted connections will not be stuttered at.

     -b      Run in blacklist-only mode.

     -c maxcon
             The maximum number of concurrent connections to allow.  maxcon
             may not exceed kern.maxfiles - 200, and defaults to 800.

     -d      Debug mode.  spamd does not fork(2) into the background.

     -G passtime:greyexp:whiteexp
             Adjust the three time parameters for greylisting.  passtime de-
             faults to 25 (minutes), greyexp to 4 (hours), and whiteexp to 864
             (hours, approximately 36 days).

     -h hostname
             The hostname that is reported in the SMTP banner.

     -l address
             Specify the local address to which spamd is to bind(2).  By de-
             fault spamd listens on all local addresses.

     -M address
             Specify a local IP address which is listed as a low priority MX
             record, used to identify and trap hosts that connect to MX hosts
             out of order.  See GREYTRAPPING below for details.

     -n name
             The SMTP version banner that is reported upon initial connection.

     -p port
             Specify a different port number from the default port that spamd
             should listen for redirected SMTP connections on.  The default
             port is found by looking for the named service ``spamd'' using
             getservbyname(3).

     -S secs
             Stutter at greylisted connections for the specified amount of
             seconds, after which the connection is not stuttered at.  The de-
             fault is 10; maximum is 90.

     -s secs
             Delay each character sent to the client by the specified amount
             of seconds.  The default is 1; maximum is 10.

     -v      Enable verbose logging.  By default spamd logs connections, dis-
             connections and blacklist matches to syslogd(8) at LOG_INFO lev-
             el.  With verbose logging enabled, message detail including sub-
             ject and recipient information is logged at LOG_INFO, along with
             the message body and SMTP dialogue being logged at LOG_DEBUG lev-
             el.

     -w window
             Set the socket receive buffer to this many bytes, adjusting the
             window size.

     -Y synctarget
             Add target synctarget to receive synchronisation messages.
             synctarget can be either an IPv4 address for unicast messages or
             a network interface and optional TTL value for multicast messages
             to the group 224.0.1.240.  If the multicast TTL is not specified,
             a default value of 1 is used.  This option can be specified mul-
             tiple times.  See also SYNCHRONISATION below.

     -y synclisten
             Listen on synclisten for incoming synchronisation messages.  The
             format for synclisten is the same as for synctarget, above.  This
             option can be specified only once.  See also SYNCHRONISATION be-
             low.

     When run in default mode, connections receive the pleasantly innocuous
     temporary failure of:

         451 Temporary failure, please try again later.

     This happens in the SMTP dialogue immediately after the DATA command is
     received from the client.  spamd will use the db file in /var/db/spamd to
     track these connections to spamd by connecting IP address, HELO/EHLO, en-
     velope-from, and envelope-to, or tuple for short.

     A previously unseen tuple is added to the /var/db/spamd database, record-
     ing the time an initial connection attempt was seen.  After passtime min-
     utes if spamd sees a retried attempt to deliver mail for the same tuple,
     spamd will whitelist the connecting address by adding it as a whitelist
     entry to /var/db/spamd.

     spamd regularly scans the /var/db/spamd database and configures all
     whitelist addresses as the pf(4) <spamd-white> table, allowing connec-
     tions to pass to the real MTA.  Any addresses not found in <spamd-white>
     are redirected to spamd.

     An example pf.conf(5) fragment is given below.  In the example, the file
     /etc/mail/nospamd contains addresses of hosts who should be passed di-
     rectly to the SMTP agent (thus bypassing spamd).

         table <spamd-white> persist
         table <nospamd> persist file "/etc/mail/nospamd"
         pass in on egress proto tcp from any to any port smtp \
             rdr-to 127.0.0.1 port spamd
         pass in on egress proto tcp from <nospamd> to any port smtp
         pass in log on egress proto tcp from <spamd-white> to any port smtp
         pass out log on egress proto tcp to any port smtp

     spamd removes tuple entries from the /var/db/spamd database if delivery
     has not been retried within greyexp hours from the initial time a connec-
     tion is seen.  The default is 4 hours as this is the most common setting
     after which MTAs will give up attempting to retry delivery of a message.

     spamd removes whitelist entries from the /var/db/spamd database if no
     mail delivery activity has been seen from the whitelisted address by
     spamlogd(8) within whiteexp hours from the initial time an address is
     whitelisted.  The default is 36 days to allow for the delivery of monthly
     mailing list digests without greylist delays every time.

     spamd-setup(8) should be run periodically by cron(8).  When run in black-
     list-only mode, the -b flag should be specified.  Use crontab(1) to un-
     comment the entry in root's crontab.

     spamlogd(8) should be used to update the whitelist entries in
     /var/db/spamd when connections are seen to pass to the real MTA on the
     smtp port.

     spamdb(8) can be used to examine and alter the contents of /var/db/spamd.
     See spamdb(8) for further information.

     spamd sends log messages to syslogd(8) using facility daemon and, with
     increasing verbosity, level err, warn, info, and debug.  The following
     syslog.conf(5) section can be used to log connection details to a dedi-
     cated file:

           !spamd
           daemon.err;daemon.warn;daemon.info      /var/log/spamd

     A typical entry shows the time of the connection and the IP address of
     the connecting host.  When a host connects, the total number of active
     connections and the number of connections from blacklisted hosts is shown
     (connected (xx/xx)).  When a host disconnects, the amount of time spent
     talking to spamd is shown.

GREYTRAPPING
     When running spamd in default mode, it may be useful to define spamtrap
     destination addresses to catch spammers as they send mail from greylisted
     hosts.  Such spamtrap addresses affect only greylisted connections to
     spamd and are used to temporarily blacklist a host that is obviously
     sending spam.  Unused email addresses or email addresses on spammers'
     lists are very useful for this.  When a host that is currently greylisted
     attempts to send mail to a spamtrap address, it is blacklisted for 24
     hours by adding the host to the spamd blacklist <spamd-greytrap>.  Spam-
     trap addresses are added to the /var/db/spamd database with the following
     spamdb(8) command:

           # spamdb -T -a 'spamtrap@mydomain.org'

     See spamdb(8) for further details.

     The file /etc/mail/spamd.alloweddomains can be used to specify a list of
     domainname suffixes, one per line, one of which must match each destina-
     tion email address in the greylist.  Any destination address which does
     not match one of the suffixes listed in spamd.alloweddomains will be
     trapped, exactly as if it were sent to a spamtrap address.  Comment lines
     beginning with `#' and empty lines are ignored.

     For example, if spamd.alloweddomains contains:

           @humpingforjesus.com
           obtuse.com

     The following destination addresses would not cause the sending host to
     be trapped:

           beardedclams@humpingforjesus.com
           beck@obtuse.com
           beck@snouts.obtuse.com

     However the following addresses would cause the sending host to be
     trapped:

           peter@apostles.humpingforjesus.com
           bigbutts@bofh.ucs.ualberta.ca

     A low priority MX IP address may be specified with the -M option.  When
     spamd has such an address specified, no host may enter new greylist tu-
     ples when connecting to this address; only existing entries may be updat-
     ed.  Any host attempting to make new deliveries to the low priority MX
     for which a tuple has not previously been seen will be trapped.

     Note that it is important to ensure that a host running spamd with the
     low priority MX address active must see all the greylist changes for a
     higher priority MX host for the same domains.  This is best done by the
     host itself receiving the connections to the higher priority MX on anoth-
     er IP address (which may be an IP alias).  This will ensure that hosts
     are not trapped erroneously if the higher priority MX is unavailable.
     For example, on a host which is an existing MX record for a domain of
     value 10, a second IP address with MX of value 99 (a higher number, and
     therefore lower priority) would ensure that any RFC conformant client
     would attempt delivery to the IP address with the MX value of 10 first,
     and should not attempt to deliver to the address with MX value 99.

BLACKLIST-ONLY MODE
     When running in default mode, the pf.conf(5) rules described above are
     sufficient.  However when running in blacklist-only mode, a slightly mod-
     ified pf.conf(5) ruleset is required, redirecting any addresses found in
     the <spamd> table to spamd.  Any other addresses are passed to the real
     MTA.

         table <spamd> persist
         pass on egress proto tcp from <spamd> to any \
             port smtp rdr-to 127.0.0.1 port spamd

     Addresses can be loaded into the table, like:

         # pfctl -q -t spamd -T replace -f /usr/local/share/spammers

     spamd-setup(8) can also be used to load addresses into the <spamd> table.
     It has the added benefit of being able to remove addresses from black-
     lists, and will connect to spamd over a localhost socket, giving spamd
     information about each source of blacklist addresses, as well as custom
     rejection messages for each blacklist source that can be used to let any
     real person whose mail is deferred by spamd know why their address has
     been listed from sending mail.  This is important as it allows legitimate
     mail senders to pressure spam sources into behaving properly so that they
     may be removed from the relevant blacklists.

CONFIGURATION CONNECTIONS
     spamd listens for configuration connections on the port identified by the
     named service ``spamd-cfg'' (see services(5)).  The configuration socket
     listens only on the INADDR_LOOPBACK address.  Configuration of spamd is
     done by connecting to the configuration socket, and sending blacklist in-
     formation, one blacklist per line.  Each blacklist consists of a name, a
     message to reject mail with, and addresses in CIDR format, all separated
     by semicolons (;):

           tag;"rejection message";aaa.bbb.ccc.ddd/mm;aaa.bbb.ccc.ddd/mm

     The rejection message must be inside double quotes.  A \" will produce a
     double quote in the output.  \n will produce a newline.  %A will expand
     to the connecting IP address in dotted quad format.  %% may be used to
     produce a single % in the output.  \\ will produce a single \.  spamd
     will reject mail by displaying all the messages from all blacklists in
     which a connecting address is matched.  spamd-setup(8) is normally used
     to configure this information.

SYNCHRONISATION
     spamd supports realtime synchronisation of spamd databases between a num-
     ber of spamd daemons running on multiple machines, using the -Y and -y
     options.  The databases are synchronised for greylisted and trapped en-
     tries; whitelisted entries and entries made manually using spamdb(8) are
     not updated.

     The following example will accept incoming multicast and unicast synchro-
     nisation messages, and send outgoing multicast messages through the net-
     work interface em0:

           # /usr/libexec/spamd -y em0 -Y em0

     The second example will increase the multicast TTL to a value of 2, add
     the unicast targets foo.somewhere.org and bar.somewhere.org, and accept
     incoming unicast messages sent to example.somewhere.org only.

           # /usr/libexec/spamd -y example.somewhere.org -Y em0:2 \
                   -Y foo.somewhere.org -Y bar.somewhere.org

     If the file /etc/mail/spamd.key exists, spamd will calculate the message-
     digest fingerprint (checksum) for the file and use it as a shared key to
     authenticate the synchronisation messages.  The file itself can contain
     any data.  For example, to create a secure random key:

           # dd if=/dev/arandom of=/etc/mail/spamd.key bs=2048 count=1

     The file needs to be copied to all hosts sending or receiving synchroni-
     sation messages.

FILES
     /etc/mail/spamd.alloweddomains    Required suffixes for greytrapping.
     /etc/mail/spamd.conf              Default configuration file.
     /etc/mail/spamd.key               Authentication key for synchronisation
                                       messages.
     /var/db/spamd                     Greylisting database.

SEE ALSO
     pf.conf(5), services(5), spamd.conf(5), syslog.conf(5), pfctl(8),
     spamd-setup(8), spamdb(8), spamlogd(8), syslogd(8)

HISTORY
     The spamd command first appeared in OpenBSD 3.3.

     Previous versions of spamd required traps to be entered into the database
     including the enclosing <> characters; current versions expect only the
     email address without the enclosing <> characters.

     Blacklisted hosts are no longer stored in the <spamd> table when operat-
     ing in default mode for performance reasons.

BUGS
     spamd currently uses the user ``_spamd'' outside a chroot jail when run-
     ning in default mode, and requires the greylisting database in
     /var/db/spamd to be owned by the ``_spamd'' user.  This is wrong and
     should change to a distinct user from the one used by the chrooted spamd
     process.

OpenBSD 4.7                   September 17, 2009                             6
