[quote user="bfluet"]Paul is dead on.  My ISP is Deltacom and it's their server address that is being written to the From header.[/quote]

What this indicates is that the message is going out without an FQDN (fully-qualified domain name) in the From: field. So, say the user's name is "Bill", the from: field is going out as "From: Bill" instead of "From: Bill@domain.com". The ISP will be running Sendmail, which normalizes messages that aren't conformant in this way (although what it does is not actually very useful).

For the life of me, I can't remember if this issue was ever resolved during the v4.5 development process or not - I certainly remember looking into it, but I can't remember what the outcome was. If I can get a chance this afternoon, I'll take another look at it, but if you find it still happens after v4.5 gets released, raise the issue here again and I'll look into it in more depth.

Cheers!

-- David --

I have created an autoreply (areply.pm) file and placed it in the mailbox of an ex-coworkers to provide notification of his passing. When I tested the autoreply from my gmail

account the From address of the reply was

"jrh@mailrtr2.mailzone.edeltacom.com" instead of his domain address.

Our domain mailboxes (POP3) are hosted by our domain host. Mercury/32 (C & D)

is handling the reply. The Mercury UDG reply address format is confirgured as "~p" <~r> and I have confirmed that there is a reply to address in the sole identity of his Pegasus configuration.  Where is this From address coming from and how can I correct it in the autoreply?

Brian Fluet 

Hi Brian
 

Could you tell us what version of Mercury/32 you are using and what LAN environment you are using it on (ie all Windows workstations / some Netware access, etc).  Also, if you could post the contents of your areply.pm that would be useful too.

Thanks, Lex 

[quote user="bfluet"]  Our domain mailboxes (POP3) are hosted by our domain host. Mercury/32 (C & D) is handling the reply. [/quote]

Does the domain host alter the headers of the message?

Normally Mercury uses the To: field to compose the reply information in simple autoreplies.

//Note: In Mercury 4.5 the autoreply feature is vastly improved.

I'm using Mercury/32 4.01b modules C & D on an all Windows LAN (XP Pro & Server 2003).  Pegasus 4.41 is installed multiuser standalone on a Server 2003 machine.  Mailboxes reside on the same machine.  Mercury/32 4.01b runs on a separate XP Pro machine. 

The UDG in Pegasus is configured as follows:

   Gateway name:   Mercury
   New Mail path:
   Is a program to run:  N
   *New mail search mask:
   *Outgoing mail path:   \\winserv01\mail\q_out
   *Run for outgoing mail:
   *Filename format:  ~d~d.101
    Run to validate address:
   *Reply address format:   "~p" <~r>
   Accepts SMTP addresses:  Y
   Simple message headers:  'Glue" headers
   UUEncode attachments:  Y
   Burst Messages:  N            Gateway processes BCC?:  N
   Strip gateway name:  Y
   Force all mail through:  Y     

The contents of the areply.pm file is as follows: 

 ======
This is an autoreply to an email you have sent to John Haug of Denver Equipment Co. of Charlotte, Inc....

It is with heavy hearts that we announce the passing of John Haug, one of the founders of the Denver Equipment Co. of Charlote, Inc.  John was an extraordinary human being.  We will miss his kind soul and humorous spirit. 

Please be assured that your email message has been forwarded to one of our capable employees and will be responded to promptly.  Future emails may be addressed to our general mailbox at decc@dec-clt.com.

Thank you for your interest in the Denver Equipment Co. of Charlotte, Inc.
======= 

 I hope something in these details provides a clue as to why the From address in autoreplies is not the user@domain address of the user generating the autoreply.

--
Brian
 

Sorry this doesn't tell me much. What are the headers of an inbound email that triggered the autoreply?

(especially the FROM and REPLY-TO, compared to the header in your original post above)

> ...the From address of the reply was

"jrh@mailrtr2.mailzone.edeltacom.com" instead of his domain address.

Which from address do you mean?  The envelope sender (return address) or the From: header in the email?  Autoreplies are normally sent out by Mercury as 'bounces' with empty (<>) envelope addresses.

If yours are different, there must be a server which is rewriting the headers between you and the recipient.

You can stop the mercury core processing, and retreive the message body, copy the headers into notepad and compare these headers with the ones sent out from mercury when Mercury is generating the autoreply. Most likely as Paul writes, the To header is altered by your forwarding host.

Paul is dead on.  My ISP is Deltacom and it's their server address that is being written to the From header.  Is there a better way to automatically generate replies to all messages addressed to a specific user in order to notify senders that the user is no longer employed and advise of a new contact email address?  One where the recipient can identify the sender based on the From address?

Since Greg has answered you on the mercury mailing list saying that you shouldn't send out autoreplies, one may wonder why this feature exists - no.
No, Gregs answer to instead have a transaction rule issuing a failure of 551, indicating the reason will also not work in your case, since this will only be seen by your relaying agent - which in turn has to forward the 551 message back - if - and I stress - if they do send failure messages back to the recipient and not reroute them to a postmaster.

The autoreply function is for readibility reasons and that you can respond with a prompt message that is humanly readable by people not involved in mailservers. 551 messages aren't read that way by many. Atleast that is my experience.

Is there by any chance another header inside the message, like "originally to:" that points to the correct To address you maybe could work with in forming your reply address?