[exim] Unwanted bounce messages generated locally

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Author: Yves Goergen
Date:  
To: exim
Subject: [exim] Unwanted bounce messages generated locally
Hello,

I'm currently investigating why my Exim mail server queue slowly fills
up with frozen messages. Now I have found two things that I don't like.

1) When a message comes in for a mailbox that doesn't exist (unknown
user), the message doesn't seem to be rejected at first instance but a
bounce mail is generated that cannot be delivered and ends up frozen in
the queue. How can this be changed so that unknown users
(postmaster@some-local-domain) can be rejected at the first place?

2) When a mail forward is set up, the incoming mail seems to be stored
and confirmed to the sender, then forwarded to the destination. When
this destination host rejects the message due to spam, my server wants
to generate a bounce mail notifying about the delivery error. Again,
this bounce mail ends up frozen in my queue.

I can well imagine that some of the bounced messages are successfully
delivered to their destination, in case of valid forged sender
addresses. I don't want my mail server to be responsible for any
backscatter.

I have configured my own spam filter (SA) so that it can scan the
message during the first-place SMTP session and reject spam without
first confirming it and later trying to send back a bounce message. But
why does exim still use bounces in the two cases mentioned above?

Using Exim 4.62 on Debian 3.1, SpamAssassin 3.18, MySQL database backend
for virtual domain hosting of mailboxes and forwarding addresses.

--
Yves Goergen "LonelyPixel" <nospam.list@???>
Visit my web laboratory at http://beta.unclassified.de