(Apologies to list maintainers. I'm an idiot. Please delete the earlier mail sent from the wrong address).
Hi Guys
Some advice please.
I own a bunch of domains, not all of which have many (or in some cases, any) real users. One domain name in particular is (accidentally) very similar to a domain in use by a UK QUANGO (one character different). Consequently my domain receives a fair amount of email intended for the other. Naturally I just bounce all email to my domain with a "550 5.1.1 blah@domain: Recipient address rejected: User unknown in virtual mailbox table;"
When I first set up mail on the domain (back in 2011) and started to get lots of mail I did some research and found the QUANGO which should be getting the email. I contacted them and told them about the issue and suggested that they let all their contacts know about the problem. Herein, of course, lies a difficulty. Apart from their regular correspondents, they cannot know in advance who will email them.
I left it, and figured that over time the volume of email would tail off as people caught on. But now, seven years later, I'm /still/ getting mail to my domain which should go elsewhere and which I simply bounce. My logs get cluttered with the bounce message and the end user may or may not know what to do about the failed delivery since I'm just telling them that the user doesn't exist, when they may think he does.
Now to the question.
I'm building a new email server (postfix) and I'm moving some of my doamins to that new server. Since it's a nice clean sparkly new server I'd like to ensure that I don't just move an existing problem from one MTA to another. So I've been pondering whether (and if so how) to implement an autoreply mechanism for my domain which sends a friendly message to the sender saying something like "Hi, you may have a typo in your email address for blah@mydomain. I run that domain and I get a lot of email there which is probably intended for blah@otherdomain. You may like to try resending to the proper address."
I think I could probably set up something using vacation with a catchall alias for any address at my domain. But I'm aware of the potential for a complete balls up if I get this wrong. If "bad people" (TM) find that my mail system will autorespond to any address at a particular domain it could be used as a spamming mechanism which might get my sparkly new MTA blacklisted. I don't want that.
So - any advice on the best approach? Or should I just suck it up as I currently do and not bother trying to be helpful?
Cheers
Mick
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