ignoring bounce messages from bounced emails

[mikea]

On Tue, Apr 22, 2003 at 09:04:26PM -0400, Dene Ulmschneider wrote:
> Hey all-
>
> sorry for the confusing subject of my email - but it's the most accurate
> way to state what I am looking to do.
>
> I am running RHL 7.3 with the latest MailScanner and SA 2.53. I am
> currently forwarding regular spam but I am bouncing high scoring spam.
> Obviously - there are lots of spam messages that come form forged addresses
> and bouncing those messages is in turn causing me to get a bounce message
> back. This is due to the fact that I am bouncing the spam from an address
> that does not and probably never will really exist.
>
> My question is this:
> Is there a way to ignore the bounces that I get back form forged addresses?
> What would be the best way to discard and ignore those particular messages.
> Is there a setting in SA or MS that will allow that?

I don't know that there's a SA or MS setting, but it is possible to
set procmail to grab-and-disappear them. This *WILL* cause you to lose
other, valid bounce messages, and you will not be compliant with the
parts of RFC *822 (IIRC) that require you to accept bounces.

I see maybe 50 bounces/day at the state agency I run MailScanner for,
with only about 2300 externally-visible E-mail addresses, and it is a
PITA. But I handle them, because it means that I also see valid
bounces.

Someone else may have a better solution.

--
Mike Andrews
mikea at mikea.ath.cx
Tired old sysadmin since 1964