OT: Sendmail REJECT or DISCARD preference

[Peter Farrow]

Matt Kettler wrote:
> Peter Farrow wrote:
>> Matt Kettler wrote:
>>> Peter Farrow wrote:
>>>
>>>>> Steve.
>>>> If you reject,  and its spoofed you'll get it back anyway, so you 
>>>> end up receiving and then storing it in the postmaster address, it 
>>>> is always best to discard in this scenario...or even worse bouncing 
>>>> it again
>>>>
>>>
>>> Stop confusing REJECT with post delivery bouncing :) See my other 
>>> post in this thread.
>> I am talking about sendmail access file entries at the MTA level.... 
>> nothing else...my point is the general notice supplied in the REJECT 
>> directive often ends up coming back round...I've seen it many times..
>
> That's exactly what I'm talking about. I've got several such entries, 
> and I've never seen any of them come back. ever.
>
> There's something seriously wrong with your mailserver if this is 
> happening.
This is how it works:

Someone sends a spoofed spam email to one of my clients the other side 
of my mailscanner, but they get the address wrong.

The mailer daemon on the client server rejects the email, (I am the 
postmaster for my clients Linux server) with user unknown,

-- But the address is spoofed so it goes back to the wrong person (back 
scatter), The mail system rejects the back scatter for various reasons 
(user known mailbox full etc etc etc) so this bounce comes back to the 
postmaster of the client machine which goes to my postmaster mailbox.

If I simply DISCARD the email at the mailscanner the process is stopped 
completely.

If the mailer daemon REJECTS the message on the mailscanner or the 
client server,  I get it in the postmaster mailbox as per the reason 
above because I am also the postmaster there as well...

So DISCARD is the best way forward.