sendmail question?

["arslan saeed" <arslan@tele.net.pk>]

Hi,

We are running sendmail on redhat linux 7.3. When internet connectivity goes
down at times, local users get smtp time-out messages (server not
responding). I figured the cause of this message is that by default sendmail
does initial dns lookups on all messages it recieves and in case of internet
connectivity being down, it is not able to do so and produces this message.

so I configured sendmail in defered delivery mode so that it should queue
every message and should  not do dns lookups and accept emails from local
users in case of internet connectivity being down.

However I figured that in defered delivery mode it does not implement anti
spam configuration in access map. When I change delivery mode to defaulot
background or queue-only then it looks access maps and prevents mail
spamming.

Is there anyway to make access maps work in deferred delivery mode. or any
other configuration in which sendmail implements anti spam rules and also
does not do initial dns maps so that email could be queued by sendmail even
when it cannot reach internet.

thanks
arslan.