Confused about how Bounce Servers work

Kane

Member
In our Delivery Server setup, we specify a Bounce Server. However, now we see a ton outgoing emails stuck in the Exim queue FROM the Bounce Server address.

How exactly does the Bounce Server work? Is there any documentation on it?

We thought it was only used to READ bounce emails (sent to the Return-Path). But it looks like on our server it's trying to SEND emails from that address.

Please help :)
 
They're queued up to send to email addresses that bounced. Email addresses that don't exist. So they basically just sit in the Exim queue.
 
Also what does the status of "Cron-running" mean for a Bounce Server? We have one setup that can't be edited, and that's its status.
 
They're queued up to send to email addresses that bounced. Email addresses that don't exist. So they basically just sit in the Exim queue.
I think exim keeps then in queue and will retry till it will give up, this has nothing to do with bounces so far, rather the way the smtp server acts.

Also what does the status of "Cron-running" mean for a Bounce Server? We have one setup that can't be edited, and that's its status.
Cron-running is when it actually is connecting to the imap/pop server and downloads emails and processes them. If you think it got stuck, you can refresh it from backend -> misc -> emergency actions.
 
But why is the Bounce Server trying to SEND emails? Shouldn't it only be used to connect to a POP3 account and READ emails?
 
The bounce server doesn't try to send any email, and yes, it only connects, downloads/reads the emails and takes actions against them.
 
That's what we thought, so it is strange that the Exim queue is showing outgoing emails FROM the Bounce Server address. We only use that address in MailWizz as the Bounce Server, not as any "From" address.
 
I think you are confusing things.
MAIL FROM is not the same thing as the FROM header.
FROM header is something easily spoofed and that's why email server often look at the ReturnPath as the real sender of the email, and in your case, exim sees that as the real sender.
 
Back
Top