6.15 Configure Mail Transfer Agent for Local-Only Mode

Information

Mail Transfer Agents (MTA), such as sendmail and Postfix, are used to listen for incoming mail and transfer the messages to the appropriate user or mail server. If the system is not intended to be a mail server, it is recommended that the MTA be configured to only process local mail. The software for all Mail Transfer Agents is complex and most have a long history of security issues. While it is important to ensure that the system can process local mail messages, it is not necessary to have the MTA's daemon listening on a port unless the server is intended to be a mail server that receives and processes mail from other systems. Note: The remediation given here provides instructions for configuring the postfix mail server, depending on your environment you may have an alternative MTA installed such as sendmail. If this is the case consult the documentation for your installed MTA to configure the recommended state.

Solution

Edit /etc/exim4/update-exim4.conf.conf and edit the dc_local_interfaces line to remove non loopback addresses- dc_local_interfaces='127.0.0.1 ; --1' Run update-exim4.conf- # update-exim4.conf Reload exim4 configuration- # service exim4 reload

See Also

https://workbench.cisecurity.org/files/85

Item Details

Category: CONFIGURATION MANAGEMENT

References: 800-53|CM-7b., CSCv6|9.1

Plugin: Unix

Control ID: 4426bc279b83b960a3969ecdf98aa42d7250c9522d96e6c2df365b0eaae09cda