Controlling mail() ?

[Jonty]

Hello

I'm writing on behalf of a large gaming company whom also offers a hosting service with full PHP support. In the sendmail was enabled, but, unfortunately, people started to signup to the hosting and use scripts to spam thousands of @yahoo.com, @aol.com etc email addresses. Thus, we had to disable the mail() function as, aside from the inconvenience to the people being spammed, the volume of messages was causing troubles for our servers.

Anyway, more and more people have been requesting the mail() function be reactivated, since a great many scripts, from form mail to forums, use sendmail in some fashion.

What I was wondering is, is there any way to limit the number of messages sent by anyone person? i.e. No more than one message every five minutes, no more than 100 messages per day etc? I have heard of similar systems being implemented but I have as yet been unable to track any down. Ideally any such solution would be on the server side, although it may not be out of the question to ask the users to modify their code should the need arise.

Anyway, I just wanted to get your thoughts and opinions, so any help or advice would be grately appreciated.

Thank you in advance

[jowatkins]

I don't know of any such system, but could you maybe build a database holding the id's of all users allowed to use the mail function. Perhaps then get a cron jon or some such to check in the db if the mail function is activated. If that person is in the list, allow the mail to be sent. Each time a mail is sent update the date time function. If a mail was sent in the last, I don't now, three minutes, don't allow the mail. You could also do a count to check howw many mails have been sent by that user in the db and set a maximum. Sorry if it's a bit simplistic, but possibly a starting point?