Auto marking mail to nonexistent email address as spam

[Chris W. Parker]

Kevin Spicer <mailto:kevins at BMRB.CO.UK>
    on Friday, May 28, 2004 1:39 PM said:

> Forgive me if I'm being stupid but how does mail go to non-existant
> users?

well in cases like mine (maybe the op is in the same boat) i used
mailscanner in front of an exchange server and since mailscanner (until
recently) has no knowledge of a valid user within the domain it handles
it just passes the email through. then when the exchange server gets it
it says "oh wait. we don't have any users here by that name." and then
sends out an NDR. but since a lot of the time the From: address is
invalid the NDR doesn't go anywhere and fills up the BadMail directory
with 1000's of little files.

so technically mail never gets to non-existant users, it's just that it
puts an unnecessary load on the server (in my case).

and to the op, tell your boss that any mail sent to a non-existant user
is absolutely pointless and should just be outright deleted. that's what
i do.


chris.

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