Patent ID: 8453235

Claim:
A method of controlling access between a client and one of a plurality of mail transfer agents (MTAs) coupled to a server, said method comprising operations of: receiving a request for access to said one of said plurality of mail transfer agents by said client, defining a requested mail transfer agent, with remaining mail transfer agents defining operational mail transfer agents, wherein receiving further includes receiving by one of said plurality of mail transfer agents, with said one of said plurality of mail transfer agents including a multi-threaded meta-server looking to a access control table to transmit a status check to said server having a rules monitor; examining accesses between said client and said requested and operational mail transfer agents to obtain an existing access profile, with examining further including having said rules monitor examining a profile table that includes information concerning said existing access profile; developing a conditional access profile from said existing access profile and said request, with developing having said rules monitor read said existing profile and augment the same with information concerning said request; comparing said conditional access profile with a permissible access profile to determine whether to grant said request, with comparing further including having said rules monitor compare said conditional access profile with said permissible access profile, wherein the determination is based at least in part on a quota in the permissible access file that is selected from the group consisting of recipient sending quotas and temporal recipient sending quotas, wherein the determination is subject to superseding rights from a previous denial of access that set a predetermined lapse of time, and wherein each operation of the method is executed by a processor.