How to Configure the Sender Filter Blocking Actions

Article
01/23/2017

Microsoft Exchange Server 2007 will reach end of support on April 11, 2017. To stay supported, you will need to upgrade. For more information, see Resources to help you upgrade your Office 2007 servers and clients.

Applies to: Exchange Server 2007, Exchange Server 2007 SP1, Exchange Server 2007 SP2, Exchange Server 2007 SP3

This topic explains how to configure what action the Sender Filter agent takes on messages from senders and domains that are on the Blocked Senders list. We recommend that you configure the Sender Filter agent to reject these messages. For more information about how to specify blocked senders and domains, see How to Add Blocked Senders and Domains to Sender Filter.

You can configure the Sender Filter agent to take the following actions when a message is received from a sender or domain that is on the Blocked Senders list:

Reject message This option is the default action. If this option is selected, the Sender Filter agent rejects the message. The SMTP error response is a 5xx level protocol response.
Stamp message with blocked sender and continue processing If you select this option, messages from a sender or domain that is on the Blocked Senders list are stamped with the blocked status and continue to process. This message metadata is evaluated by the Content Filter agent when a spam confidence level (SCL) is calculated. Additionally, sender reputation uses the message metadata when it calculates a sender reputation level (SRL) for the sender of the message.

Before You Begin

To perform the following procedures on a computer that has the Edge Transport server role installed, you must log on by using an account that is a member of the local Administrators group on that computer.

Also, before you perform these procedures, confirm the following:

You have reviewed Anti-Spam and Antivirus Functionality to understand the general strategy for configuring all anti-spam agents so that they work together efficiently for your organization.
You have read Configuring Sender Filtering.

Procedure

To use the Exchange Management Console to configure sender filtering actions

In the Exchange Management Console, click Edge Transport.
In the work pane, click the Anti-spam tab, and then select Sender Filtering.
In the action pane, click Properties, and then on the Sender Filtering Properties page, click the Action tab.
On the Action tab, select the action to take when the message is generated from a sender or domain on the Blocked Senders list.

Note

Reject message is the default setting.

To use the Exchange Management Shell to configure sender filtering actions

Run the following command:
```
Set-SenderFilterConfig -Action <StampStatus | Reject>
```
For example, to set the sender filter action to reject messages from senders or domains on the Blocked Senders list, run the following command:
```
Set-SenderFilterConfig -Action Reject
```
Note

Reject is the default value.

For detailed syntax and parameter information, see Set-SenderFilterConfig.

For More Information

For more information about sender filtering, see the following topics: