Sorry, found the issue.  When I had spoken with the admins at backscatterer, they said we were being blocked for backscatter, according to their info.  When I checked the configuration on our server and THEIR DATABASE, it looks more like the VRFY command was enabled (which it shouldn't).  I've got the system configured to not backscatter or send VRFY commands.  Thanks for your help and especially your patience.

Recently, we were told be a blacklisting agency that we needed to change the configuration on our server to stop sending delivery failure messages for invalid accounts.  I understand that this is because spam email sent to fake addresses often spoofs their "from" header, and someone else gets all the junk replies when their address is used.  We're fine with this, except now the server is sending over 1000 spam messages to our junk account every day.  Due to the frequency of false positives on our junk filter, we have to sort through these every day.  Is there anyway that the fake addresses can be rejected without sending a delivery failure file, or is there a way to send one where we won't get harassed for "abusive" settings?

 NOTE:  We do not have an issue with relaying rogue email.  All email must be properly authorized in order to relay.  We just receive a massive load of junk to our local users.

Is there anyway that the fake addresses can be rejected without sending a

delivery failure file, or is there a way to send one where we won't get

harassed for "abusive" settings?

If you tell MercuryS to not accept mail for invalid local addresses the the mail will be rejected at the server.  This means the connecting spammer host gets the rejection.

Awesome.  Is there any easy way to prevent copies from being sent to the junk filter, such as an expression rule?  This would make things a whole lot easier on my department.

Thank you

If the message is rejected by the SMTP server module (which is what will happen if "Accept mail for invalid local addresses" isn't checked), then there won't be any copies sent to the postmaster account either.

/Rolf

Right, but when we don't have the box checked, it sends out an automatic message saying the the user doesn't exist.  We were blacklisted for doing this, as it is now considered "abusive behavior" to do so, since the From line on spam is more than likely spoofed, and some random person somewhere will get a bunch of bogus reject messages.  I need to be able to reject the email without sending a response.

Thanks

It's the other way around, actually: if the checkbox is checked the server will receive the message and then send out a notification saying that the recipient doesn't exist. If the checkbox isn't checked the SMTP server module will refuse the recipient before the message itself is received, and no notification will be sent out. You may need to restart Mercury after changing this setting, though.

/Rolf 

When I attempt to send a message without "Accept mail for invalid local addresses" checked, I get this response:

This is an automatically generated Delivery Status Notification.

Delivery to the following recipients failed.

jkkjnbkgjb@40debts.org

When I do have it checked, I get this one:

With reference to your message with the subject:
   "Test"

The local mail transport system has reported the following problems
it encountered while trying to deliver your message:

-------------------------------------------------------------------
*** <somewhtajsn@40debts.org>
User <somewhtajsn@40debts.org> not known at this site.
-------------------------------------------------------------------

Your mail message is being returned to you in the next part of this
message.

Should you need assistance, please mail postmaster@40debts.org.

A delivery status notification is expected to be generated by the sending SMTP server to inform the sender that a message that it's been trying to relay has encountered a problem. It's not something that a receiving SMTP server that refuses to accept a message to a recipient would do. If you post the notification with all headers included we might be able to find out what is happening in this case.

/Rolf

[quote user="MattS"]

When I attempt to send a message without "Accept mail for invalid local addresses" checked, I get this response:

This is an automatically generated Delivery Status Notification.

Delivery to the following recipients failed.

jkkjnbkgjb@40debts.org

[/quote]This one comes from the server attempting to deliver to YOUR server.

YOUR server is NOT sending it.

This is what SHOULD happen when your server issues the SMTP REJECT.

[quote]

When I do have it checked, I get this one:

With reference to your message with the subject:
   "Test"

The local mail transport system has reported the following problems
it encountered while trying to deliver your message:

-------------------------------------------------------------------
*** <somewhtajsn@40debts.org>
User <somewhtajsn@40debts.org> not known at this site.
-------------------------------------------------------------------

Your mail message is being returned to you in the next part of this
message.

Should you need assistance, please mail postmaster@40debts.org.

 [/quote]This is your server sending a failure message for invalid mail that has been accepted.

This is backscatter and you should not be sending it.

So I should not have the box checked then?  Our original issue was that we were blacklisted by http://www.backscatterer.org/ for backscatter when we had "Accept mail to invalid local addresses" turned OFF.  I'm sorry for the confusion this caused, I'm a programmer, not a sysadmin.