receivedipdb(1)

NAME

receivedIPdb - validate the IP addresses in "Received: "

records in the header of e-mail against IP addresses in a

database file

SYNOPSIS

receivedIPdb  [-p|-P]  [-r  m|n]  [-v]  dbfilename  [filename(s)]

DESCRIPTION

ReceivedIPdb is for validating the IP addresses in "Re

ceived: " records in the headers of e-mail files against IP ad

dresses in a database file.

The program requires a Posix compatible regex(3) library

to parse the IP addresses, and mmap(2) to map the database file

of IP addresses into the Unix VM system. The IP addresses from

the e-mail header are validated against the database file using a

binary search. The database file name is a required command line

argument.

The database is a standard Unix text file, one IP address

per line, in lexical order, constructed with "sort -u infile >

outfile", or equivalent. An IP address range can be represented

as a Class A, B, or C range. For example, the IP address

"123.210." in the database file would match "123.210.1.0" in a

"Received: " e-mail header record.

The database mechanism is conservative with machine re

sources, requiring about 12.5 micro-seconds of machine time to

lookup a word in the Unix system dictionary, (2.5 MB, quarter of

a million words, single 466 MHz., Pentium, lightly loaded, Linux

2.2, time(1) command to lookup every word in the dictionary, di

vided by the number of words.) Conceptually, the database mecha

nism is implemented similar to the the technique used in the

look(1) command, but requires exact matches, as opposed to par

tial key matches.

The program has implicit IP addresses that do not have to

be included in the database-those with invalid "dotted quad" ele

ment values, (such as greater than 255, for example.) Such IP ad

dresses will be rejected-if the -p, or -P arguments are used,

such values will be denoted by not having a trailing "dot".

The input e-mail file name(s) may be supplied as addition

al optional command line arguments, or redirected to the program

via stdin for compatibility with procmail(1), and other e-mail

scripting agents.

A suitable procmail(1) recipe example might be:

:0 wfh
* ? receivedIPdb reject.db
| formail -A "X-Notice: Message in reject.db database"

which could be, if necessary, overridden, on a case-by

case basis, with the example recipe:

:0 wfh
* ^X-Notice: +Message +in +reject.db +database
* ? receivedIPdb accept.db
| formail -I "X-Notice: Message in reject.db database"

or similar construct.

The program contains less than 300 lines of declarations

and statements, all of which are documented with in line com

ments.

The program has been compiled and tested on SunOS, So

laris, and Linux, and may work on other brands of Unix.

The program returns 0 if no error and a match was found in

the database file for the IP addresses in any "Received: " header

records, 1 if no error and no match found; else returns a unique

error code greater than 1 representing the error encountered

which will, also, print an error diagnostic to stderr.

The -r option is useful for controlling the return value

under error conditions-for example, the program return can be

preempted if the database file can not be opened, (or read,) with

a return value of match, or no match, depending on environmental

requirements.

OPTIONS

dbfilename

Database file name.

filename(s)

E-mail file name(s), (defaults to stdin).

-p Print the IP address match from the database.

-P Print the IP address if it is not in the database.

-r m|n On file error, exit return = match for m, no match

for n.

-v Print the program's version information.

WARNINGS

Under buffer overflow conditions, the program makes no at

tempts at handling the situation-it just detects it, prints an

error message, and exits.

The program is capable of rejecting entire Class A, Class

B, or Class C, IP address ranges. Discretion is advised.

SEE ALSO

receivedIP(1), receivedIPdb(1), receivedIPdbdedup(1), re

ceivedIPdbrm(1), receivedIPdbusort(1), bsearchtext(1), re

ceivedAddress(1), receivedTodb(1), receivedMSGIDdb(1), receive

dUnknowndb(1), tolower(1), toupper(1), bsorttext(1) receivedIP

forgedb(1), hsearchtext(1), bsearchbody(1)

DIAGNOSTICS

Error messages for incompatible arguments, failure to al

locate memory, inaccessible files, opening and closing files, in

put record buffer overflow, compiling regular expressions, and e

mail header format or structure errors.

AUTHORS

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A license is hereby granted to reproduce this software

source code and
to create executable versions from this source code for

personal,
non-commercial use. The copyright notice included with

the software
must be maintained in all copies produced.

THIS PROGRAM IS PROVIDED "AS IS". THE AUTHOR PROVIDES NO

WARRANTIES
WHATSOEVER, EXPRESSED OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING WARRANTIES OF
MERCHANTABILITY, TITLE, OR FITNESS FOR ANY PARTICULAR PUR

POSE. THE
AUTHOR DOES NOT WARRANT THAT USE OF THIS PROGRAM DOES NOT

INFRINGE THE
INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY RIGHTS OF ANY THIRD PARTY IN ANY

COUNTRY.

Copyright (c) 2001-2007, John Conover, All Rights Re

served.

Comments and/or bug reports should be addressed to:

john@email.johncon.com (John Conover)

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January 16, 2007

RECEIVEDIPDB(1)