On the Cisco Email Security Appliance (ESA), add senders you trust to the WHITELIST sender group because this sender group uses the $TRUSTED mail flow policy. Members of the WHITELIST sender group are not subject to rate limiting, and the content from those senders is not scanned by Cisco IronPort AntiSpam engine, but is still scanned by the Sophos Anti-Virus software.

Note: By default configuration, Anti-Virus scanning is enabled but Anti-Spam is turned off.

To whitelist a sender, add the sender to the WHITELIST sender group in the Host Access Table (HAT). You can configure the HAT via the GUI or the CLI.

From the GUI

  1. Click the Mail Policies Tab.
  2. Under the Host Access Table section, select HAT Overview,
  3. On the right, make sure your InboundMail listener is currently selected,
  4. From the Sender Group column below, click WHITELIST,
  5. Click the Add Sender button near the bottom half of the page.
  6. Enter the IP or Hostname you want to whitelist in the first field.

When you finish adding entries, click the Submit button. Remember to click the Commit Changes button to save your changes.

 

From the CLI

example.com> listenerconfig
Currently configured listeners:
1. InboundMail (on PublicNet, 172.19.1.80) SMTP TCP Port 25 Public
2. OutboundMail (on PrivateNet, 172.19.2.80) SMTP TCP Port 25 Private
Choose the operation you want to perform:
- NEW - Create a new listener.
- EDIT - Modify a listener.
- DELETE - Remove a listener.
- SETUP - Change global settings.
[]> edit
Enter the name or number of the listener you wish to edit.
[]> 1
Name: InboundMail
Type: Public
Interface: PublicNet (172.19.1.80/24) TCP Port 25
Protocol: SMTP
Default Domain:
Max Concurrency: 1000 (TCP Queue: 50)
Domain Map: Disabled
TLS: No
SMTP Authentication: Disabled
Bounce Profile: Default
Use SenderBase For Reputation Filters and IP Profiling: Yes
Footer: None
LDAP: Off

Choose the operation you want to perform:
- NAME - Change the name of the listener.
- INTERFACE - Change the interface.
- LIMITS - Change the injection limits.
- SETUP - Configure general options.
- HOSTACCESS - Modify the Host Access Table.
- RCPTACCESS - Modify the Recipient Access Table.
- BOUNCECONFIG - Choose the bounce profile to use for messages injected on this
listener.
- MASQUERADE - Configure the Domain Masquerading Table.
- DOMAINMAP - Configure domain mappings.
[]> hostaccess
Default Policy Parameters
=========================
Allow TLS Connections: No
Allow SMTP Authentication: No
Require TLS To Offer SMTP authentication: No
Maximum Concurrency Per IP: 1,000
Maximum Message Size: 100M
Maximum Messages Per Connection: 1,000
Maximum Recipients Per Message: 1,000
Maximum Recipients Per Hour: Disabled
Use SenderBase For Flow Control: Yes
Spam Detection Enabled: Yes
Virus Detection Enabled: Yes
There are currently 4 policies defined.
There are currently 5 sender groups.
Choose the operation you want to perform:
- NEW - Create a new entry.
- EDIT - Modify an entry.
- DELETE - Remove an entry.
- MOVE - Move an entry.
- DEFAULT - Set the defaults.
- PRINT - Display the table.
- IMPORT - Import a table from a file.
- EXPORT - Export the table to a file.
- CLEAR - Remove all entries.
[]> edit
1. Edit Sender Group
2. Edit Policy
[1]> 1
Currently configured HAT sender groups:
1. WHITELIST (My trusted senders have no Brightmail or rate limiting)
2. BLACKLIST (Spammers are rejected)
3. SUSPECTLIST (Suspicious senders are throttled)
4. UNKNOWNLIST (Reviewed but undecided, continue normal acceptance)
5. (no name, first host = ALL) (Everyone else)
Enter the sender group number or name you wish to edit.
[]> 1

Choose the operation you want to perform:
- NEW - Add a new host.
- DELETE - Remove a host.
- MOVE - Reorder the hosts.
- POLICY - Change the policy settings and options.
- PRINT - Display the current definition.
- RENAME - Rename this sender group.
[]> new
Enter the hosts to add. CIDR addresses such as 10.1.1.0/24 are allowed. IP
address ranges such as 10.1.1.10-20 are allowed. IP subnets such as 10.2.3. are
allowed. Hostnames such as crm.example.com are allowed. Partial hostnames such
as .example.com are allowed.
Ranges of SenderBase Reputation scores such as SBRS[7.5:10.0] are allowed.
SenderBase Network Owner IDs such as SBO:12345 are allowed.
Remote blacklist queries such as dnslist[query.blacklist.example] are allowed.
Separate multiple hosts with commas
[]>

Remember to issue the commit command to save your changes.