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Hi Chris,
<br />
<br />You and Ken both have very good points. And they are the exact points I've made to the CEO of the hosting company I support. I've complained about this customer many times, as they've repeatedly gotten the hosting company's servers Blacklisted. Then I'd be responsible to move them to a new server, or change the server's IP - so mail would start flowing again for other sites on the server.
<br />
<br />But the CEO won't do anything, as they are a ministry and he's already lost a lot of paying customers. But then of course, when a server gets blacklisted or backscatter problems start affecting other sites - BlueOnyx and I get the blame. And he won't listen when I say "I told you this would happen"!
<br />
<br />I've also suggested Constant Contact or another bulk e-mailer. But the ministry doesn't want to pay $$, so I'm guessing my CEO is probably providing service free for a 501C3, or at least a discounted rate.
<br />
<br />As for the idea of them using a different "Reply To" address - I'll suggest that. But from what I've observed - the ministry people are fairly computer illiterate, and it would have to be office techs going out there to set that up. So it may not happen.
<br />
<br />So while I know I'd be treating symptoms, and not fixing the root of the problem - I'm just hoping to do the easiest/quickest patch that <i><b>I</b></i> can do to stop or at least slow the backscatter. That's why I'd hoped to configure Sendmail to stop sending bounces to the bounces it receives. These errors just keep going back and forth, building up and building up.
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />Chuck
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<br />
<br /><b>---------- Original Message
-----------</b>
<br />
From: Chris Gebhardt - VIRTBIZ Internet <cobaltfacts@virtbiz.com>
<br />
To: blueonyx@mail.blueonyx.it
<br />
Sent: Tue, 13 Nov 2018 11:47:00 -0600
<br />
Subject: [BlueOnyx:22484] Re: Backscatter problem
<br />
<br />> Hi Chuck,
<br />>
<br />>
On 11/13/2018 11:22 AM, Chuck Tetlow wrote:
<br />>
> I can and have been dumping them into a separate folder, to get them out
<br />>
> of the queue - but I'd like to prevent them going there in the first
<br />>
> [UTF-8?]place.� So I was wondering if anyone knew how to set Sendmail so it
<br />>
> would NOT generate a bounce message when it can't deliver a incoming
<br />>
> message.
<br />>
<br />>
Ooof! That would be a massive misconfiguration. Also, you'd be
<br />>
treating the symptom, not the problem.
<br />>
<br />>
As an alternative, why not simply set the reply-to address on the mass
<br />>
e-mail to a specific return address. That way, bounces would go into
<br />>
that box and someone could go through and prune out addresses from their
<br />>
list so they won't even get attempted the next time. Simply set that
<br />>
as a POP account and fetch all the messages out without leaving a copy
<br />>
on the server.
<br />>
<br />>
That way your server will receive the NDRs which could be used by the
<br />>
sender and it won't be replying to the NDRs that a box is full.
<br />>
<br />>
Also, you may want to have that organization consider an alternative
<br />>
such as using Mailman or even a 3rd party mailing list rather than
<br />>
copy/pasting a giant list of addresses in the "To" field of an email.
<br />>
It is, after all, 2018.
<br />>
<br />>
--
<br />>
Chris Gebhardt
<br />>
VIRTBIZ Internet Services
<br />>
Access, Web Hosting, Colocation, Dedicated
<br />>
<a href="http://www.virtbiz.com/" target="_blank">www.virtbiz.com</a> | toll-free
(866) 4 VIRTBIZ
<br />>
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<br />>
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<br />>
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<br />>
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