38. Access control lists

Access Control Lists (ACLs) are defined in a separate section of the run time configuration file, headed by “begin acl”. Each ACL definition starts with a name, terminated by a colon. Here is a complete ACL section which contains just one very small ACL:

  begin acl
  
  small_acl:
    accept   hosts = one.host.only

You can have as many lists as you like in the ACL section, and the order in which they appear does not matter. The lists are self-terminating.

The majority of ACLs are used to control Exim's behaviour when it receives certain SMTP commands. This applies both to incoming TCP/IP connections, and when a local process submits a message over a pipe (using the -bs option). The most common use is for controlling which recipients are accepted in incoming messages. In addition, you can also define an ACL that is used to check local non-SMTP messages. The default configuration file contains an example of a realistic ACL for checking RCPT commands. This is discussed in chapter 7.

38.1. Testing ACLs

The -bh command line option provides a way of testing your ACL configuration locally by running a fake SMTP session with which you interact. The host relay-test.mail-abuse.org provides a service for checking your relaying configuration (see section 38.27 for more details).

38.2. Specifying when ACLs are used

In order to cause an ACL to be used, you have to name it in one of the relevant options in the main part of the configuration. These options are:

acl_not_smtp	ACL for non-SMTP messages
acl_smtp_auth	ACL for AUTH
acl_smtp_connect	ACL for start of SMTP connection
acl_smtp_data	ACL after DATA
acl_smtp_etrn	ACL for ETRN
acl_smtp_expn	ACL for EXPN
acl_smtp_helo	ACL for HELO or EHLO
acl_smtp_mail	ACL for MAIL
acl_smtp_mailauth	ACL for the AUTH parameter of MAIL
acl_smtp_rcpt	ACL for RCPT
acl_smtp_starttls	ACL for STARTTLS
acl_smtp_vrfy	ACL for VRFY

For example, if you set

  acl_smtp_rcpt = small_acl

the little ACL defined above is used whenever Exim receives a RCPT command in an SMTP dialogue. The majority of policy tests on incoming messages can be done when RCPT commands arrive. A rejection of RCPT should cause the sending MTA to give up on the recipient address contained in the

Concepts