Thanks Kurt. We have never defined the ExternalPostmasterAddress on our 
customer's Exchange environments (I just checked a few of our other customer 
servers against the one in question to confirm I didn't misconfigure or skip a 
step). 

And that is why it is odd for this customer to be seeing messages about policy 
violations. I think it may be settings defined on the 3rd spam filter (MX 
Logic/McAfee Saas), as that is currently managed by their webhosting company. I 
just didn't want to start pointing fingers without at least a bit of diligence 
on my end to rule some things out. 

*Had this sitting in the background while working with web hosting company*

Turns out these were generated by the 3rd party spam filter. It is a setting on 
their end and they are going to disable it per the end-user's request.

Thanks for the links. I'm still learning every day about Exchange, and I've 
noticed on several occasions that getting my head wrapped around something that 
would *seem* to have no bearing on another area, only to realize it's another 
cog in the wheel of Exchange.

Thanks again for the help. I've seen numerous posts/responses by both you and 
Michael that I've flagged as "just in case I encounter this later". Just 
observing this list has certainly helped shorten my learning curve a great 
deal, so thank you (both) for that!

-Geoff 

-----Original Message-----
From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On 
Behalf Of Kurt Buff
Sent: Wednesday, February 12, 2014 11:46 AM
To: [email protected]
Subject: Re: [Exchange] Spam and Postmaster Question

On Wed, Feb 12, 2014 at 10:29 AM, Geoff Orlebeck <[email protected]> wrote:
> We recently replaced a new client’s SBS 2003 with Exchange 2010 SP3 UR4.
> There is a user asking bout gaining access to Postmaster mailbox for 
> spam review. Am I crazy, or is the postmaster only used for NDR 
> delivery/replies?
> This client has spam filtering provided by their web host (we are 
> working on changing that as well). But she states she previously 
> accessed [email protected] for their spam emails. I just want to 
> make sure before I reply back that I’m not off base here. The 
> ExternalPostmasterAddress property is designed for NDR  and not spam, 
> correct? No spam emails will go and sit in the postmaster mailbox 
> defined on Exchange….right?


You are sort of correct.Using the postmaster@ address as a catchall is normally 
a mistake. However, NDRs are usually delivered with a null sender address, not 
with postmaster@.

Well, I'd argue that using a catchall address is a mistake anyway, but that's a 
whole other discussion.

See https://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc2142.txt for recommendations and requirements 
regarding standard email system accounts (I believe this is still the current 
RFC - but I haven't kept up for a few years).

See also these fairly helpful links for a bit more info:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bounce_message

https://www.roe.ch/MTA_BCP

Kurt





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