[EXIM] SMTP Delivery Refused - wish for error generated back

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Author: mark david mcCreary
Date:  
To: exim-users
Subject: [EXIM] SMTP Delivery Refused - wish for error generated back
It seems that mail hosts have two different ways of informing the sender of
a message that the user is unknown. By accepting the message, and then
generating a bounce. Or by refusing the message.

When the message is refused, Exim logs the error like such


1999-03-14 00:25:33 10Lyhl-0007s4-00 ** ccrad@??? R=lookuphost
T=smtp: SMTP error from remote mailer after RCPT TO: <ccrad@???>:
host mailsorter-101.bryant.webtv.net [209.240.198.91]: 550
ccrad@???... User unknown


I would like Exim to also generate a bounce message back to the sender of
the message, and I have not been able to find an option that will
accomplish that.

In my case, I have mailing lists, and when people subscribe to them, with
an invalid email address, the Welcome message sent to them can be refused,
and I would like Exim to complete the process, and report back the error to
the mailing list, which generated the welcome message.

It is also a problem with a smarthost relaying email, when the message is
refused during the SMTP handshake protocol. There seems to be no way to
report back that it is a bad address.

While I can parse the Exim logs to find such errors, the report line does
not contain the information on who the sender was, and thus I cannot know
where to send back a bounce message. This sort of sender information is
available in the message log, when an alias file is expanded, and an
address is refused, but not on single senders.

Any suggestions on how to solve this problem ?

Thanks

mark


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