How to Specify How Undeliverable Mail is Managed

Use the following procedure to control how undeliverable mail is handled on a specific virtual server. You can always use the postmaster account to handle all non-delivery reports (NDR) for an organization. If you are sharing a namespace with another mail system, and you want to accept mail for these users and forward this mail to the other system by designating it as a smart host, specifying undeliverable mail handling on a virtual server can be useful.

Before You Begin

Before you perform the procedure in this topic, read Connecting Exchange to the Internet.

The following permissions are required to perform this procedure:

• Member of the local administrators group and a member of a group that has had the Exchange Administrators role applied at the administrative group level

Procedure

To specify how undeliverable mail is managed

1. Click Start, point to Programs, point to Microsoft Exchange, and then click System Manager.

2. In the console tree, expand Servers, expand <Server Name>, expand Protocols, and then expand SMTP.

3. Right-click the SMTP virtual server that you want, and then click Properties.

4. Click the Messages tab.

   The Messages tab in the Default SMTP Virtual Server Properties dialog box

   

5. In the Send copy of Non-Delivery Report to box, type the SMTP address of the Exchange administrator who you want to receive copies of NDRs. You can use the NDRs to help you diagnose user problems. For more information about examining NDRs, see Troubleshooting Non-Delivery Report Messages.

   Note

   NDRs often occur because users type the wrong e-mail address. You may want to disable this feature until you experience problems and need to investigate NDRs.

6. In the Badmail directory box, you can modify the location of the messages that are misrouted and cannot be delivered. It is recommended that you keep the default location. The default location is \Exchsrvr\Mailroot\vsi #*virtual server instance\*badmail.

   Warning

   Moving the Badmail directory to a disk that is separate from the queuing directory may degrade performance and make it difficult to track bad messages.

7. In the Forward all mail with unresolved recipients to host box, you can specify an alternate host to which undeliverable messages are forwarded. This is useful if you are sharing a namespace with another mail system—specifically if there are mail recipients with your domain name who do not belong to the Exchange organization. For example, exchange.user@contoso.com resides in the Exchange organization, and unix.user@contoso.com resides outside the Exchange organization. In this example, users at exchange.user@contoso.com can send mail to users at unix.user@contoso.com, and Exchange forwards the message to the specified alternate host.