From 2365d7930c08502de339bf856672ddeed144ca50 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: Todd Lyons Date: Thu, 22 May 2014 13:24:42 -0700 Subject: [PATCH] Bug 1394: Document how to do per host conn limits Since the max connections per host setting is computed and enforced in the master listening process before the fork, there is no easy way to get an accurate connection count once the Proxy Protocol negotiation has been done (i.e. in a child process, after the fork). Rather than try to use a shared mmap file using CAS in the children to manipulate it, we just advise of a crude version of max connections per IP be achieved by using ratelimit per_conn in the connect ACL. --- doc/doc-txt/experimental-spec.txt | 20 ++++++++++++++++++-- 1 file changed, 18 insertions(+), 2 deletions(-) diff --git a/doc/doc-txt/experimental-spec.txt b/doc/doc-txt/experimental-spec.txt index 031c5f4c1..7872f24e2 100644 --- a/doc/doc-txt/experimental-spec.txt +++ b/doc/doc-txt/experimental-spec.txt @@ -1108,11 +1108,27 @@ an example, in my connect ACL, I have: logwrite = Internal Server Address: $received_ip_address:$received_port -4. Runtime issues to be aware of: +4. Recommended ACL additions: - Since the real connections are all coming from your proxy, and the per host connection tracking is done before Proxy Protocol is evaluated, smtp_accept_max_per_host must be set high enough to handle all of the parallel volume you expect per inbound proxy. + - With the smtp_accept_max_per_host set so high, you lose the ability + to protect your server from massive numbers of inbound connections + from one IP. In order to prevent your server from being DOS'd, you + need to add a per connection ratelimit to your connect ACL. I + suggest something like this: + + # Set max number of connections per host + LIMIT = 5 + # Or do some kind of IP lookup in a flat file or database + # LIMIT = ${lookup{$sender_host_address}iplsearch{/etc/exim/proxy_limits}} + + defer message = Too many connections from this IP right now + ratelimit = LIMIT / 5s / per_conn / strict + + +5. Runtime issues to be aware of: - The proxy has 3 seconds (hard-coded in the source code) to send the required Proxy Protocol header after it connects. If it does not, the response to any commands will be: @@ -1131,7 +1147,7 @@ an example, in my connect ACL, I have: mail programs from working because that would require mail from localhost to use Proxy Protocol. Again, not advised! -5. Example of a refused connection because the Proxy Protocol header was +6. Example of a refused connection because the Proxy Protocol header was not sent from a host configured to use Proxy Protocol. In the example, the 3 second timeout occurred (when a Proxy Protocol banner should have been sent), the banner was displayed to the user, but all commands are -- 2.25.1