[Exim] Testing X-RBL Headers and messages

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Author: F.F. Jacot-Guillarmod
Date:  
To: exim-users
Subject: [Exim] Testing X-RBL Headers and messages
Hi there,

I've read the FAQ and the mailing list archive, and while they come
close to answering my question, there's still something missing...

For some time I've been receiving more moans than usual about
our institutions RBL implementation. I thought I had things covered
by generating an instructive little essay via this entry in my
reject.messages file:

===============================================================
rbl_reject_recipients:    The host $sender_fullhost is in an RBL. | Please refer your own or your ISP's system administrators or tech support to: | $rbl_text | The Rhodes University stance on RBL's is available at: | http://www.ru.ac.za/rblfaq.html
===============================================================


which is associated with the following exim configurations:

===============================================================
prohibition_message = "${lookup{$prohibition_reason}lsearch\
         {/usr/local/lib/exim/reject.messages}{${expand:$value}}}"
rbl_domains =  rbl.maps.vix.com/reject : dul.maps.vix.com/reject : relays.mail-abuse.org/reject : relays.orbs.org=127.0.0.3,127.0.0.4/warn
rbl_hosts = ! 146.231.0.0/16 :  *
rbl_log_headers
rbl_reject_recipients = true
rbl_warn_header
rbl_log_rcpt_count
===============================================================


However, copies of rejected mail forwarded to me only have a
miserable "rejected because of administrative prohibition"
type message, so I scanned the back issues of "exim-users"
and found my question sort of answered.

But here's some of the return from a message sent to
nelson-rbl-test@???:

===============================================================
[...]

I connected to 146.231.128.6 and here's the conversation I had:

220 terrapin.ru.ac.za ESMTP Exim 3.16 #1 Thu, 14 Sep 2000 12:01:15 +0200
helo linux.crynwr.com
250 terrapin.ru.ac.za Hello linux.crynwr.com [192.203.178.39]
helo linux.crynwr.com
250 terrapin.ru.ac.za Hello linux.crynwr.com [192.203.178.39]
mail from:<>
250 <> is syntactically correct
rcpt to:<Jacot@???>
550 mail from 192.203.178.39 rejected: administrative prohibition (host is
blacklisted)
Terminating conversation
===============================================================

Which doesn't show anything nearly like the little lecture I'd constructed for
the guilty user to get his teeth into and off my back. But are remote
spammers seeing my essay or not? Is the crynwr test giving the results
a "real" bounced message would give?

So, the question, after all this, is how does one really test RBL settings?
Or are there other problems with my configs?

Running Exim 3.16.

Thanks for any pointers,
Jacot
--
F.F. Jacot Guillarmod - IT Division - Rhodes University - Grahamstown
mailto:Jacot@ru.ac.za tel:+27.46.603-8600 fax:+27.46.603-8012
The views expressed above are not necessarily those of Rhodes University