Block Authentication By Country outdated IP->country address mapping

Problem reported by Gary Clueit - 11/14/2023 at 4:05 AM

Resolved

SmarterMail 8657.

We restrict logins for all our domains to specific countries. However, IP address blocks move occasionally. We allow Netherlands connections to a domain for example and recently all logins were failing because the NL ip address block used to belong to Canada. We have added CA to the list as a short term fix. Is there a way to update SmarterMail's ip address block to country mapping, either automatically or manually to add/remove ip blocks?

10 Replies

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Brian Bjerring-Jensen Replied

11/14/2023 at 5:46 AM

Do it on your FW instead of on the mailserver.

Our lists update every 3 hrs to allow traffic to and from the mailserver.

Kyle Kerst Replied

11/14/2023 at 10:04 AM

Employee Post Marked As Resolution

We query the Maxmind database for geoip information, and periodically update that database inside of SmarterMail with version changes. I checked in with development on this and they said to go ahead and escalate a task to have the database updated again so we'll get this squared away for you!

Kyle Kerst IT Coordinator SmarterTools Inc. www.smartertools.com

Gary Clueit Replied

11/14/2023 at 10:13 AM

Thanks.

Regards,

Gary

Brian Bjerring-Jensen Replied

11/14/2023 at 12:55 PM

Why dont we get an option to update it via the webinterface and eventually set an automatic update timer via a automated script?

Kyle Kerst Replied

11/14/2023 at 1:31 PM

Employee Post

I believe there are plans to make this automated at some point. Historically, IP ranges don't shift regions too frequently, but I'd bet this might happen more often as IPv4 exhaustion is encountered more and more.

Kyle Kerst IT Coordinator SmarterTools Inc. www.smartertools.com

echoDreamz Replied

11/15/2023 at 1:51 PM

We used to update the geoip file, but it stopped working a bit back, have not researched why since it failed. Where is the mmdb or .dat file located now?

Matt Petty Replied

11/15/2023 at 1:57 PM

Employee Post

@echoDreamz
When we went through and did a lot of the "by country" stuff we made a new format of the file that allows us to more efficiently do lookups. We have an internal converter tool for the file and we are storing it in our EXE manifest rather than externally on the drive now.
I'll see about if we can get it into tomorrow's Beta build.

Matt Petty Senior Software Developer SmarterTools Inc. www.smartertools.com

Kyle Kerst Replied

11/15/2023 at 2:04 PM

Employee Post

Thanks Matt!

Kyle Kerst IT Coordinator SmarterTools Inc. www.smartertools.com

echoDreamz Replied

11/15/2023 at 4:03 PM

Matt, that would be awesome! Since we pay for MaxMind, we get access to the paid DBs instead of the free ones, so being able to run our script that downloads and updates the SM DB would be awesome.

Tim Uzzanti Replied

11/20/2023 at 8:51 AM

Employee Post

Unfortunately, their database format is too slow. We update MaxMind regularly and use internal tools to convert into a format that can handle significantly more operations per second.

Tim Uzzanti CEO SmarterTools Inc. www.smartertools.com

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