Auto marking mail to nonexistent email address as spam

[David While]

I use milter-ahead (www.snert.com) in sendmail which does a look ahead to see if the user exists. If not it is rejected at my MS gateway by sendmail before MS ever gets it.
 
David While

	-----Original Message----- 
	From: MailScanner mailing list on behalf of Chris W. Parker 
	Sent: Fri 28/05/2004 22:21 
	To: MAILSCANNER at JISCMAIL.AC.UK 
	Cc: 
	Subject: Re: Auto marking mail to nonexistent email address as spam
	
	

	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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