From: Steven F Siirila (sfstc.umn.edu)
Date: Tue Oct 30 2007 - 19:56:54 CDT

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On Tue, Oct 30, 2007 at 08:51:13PM -0400, Victor Duchovni wrote:
> On Tue, Oct 30, 2007 at 06:08:57PM -0600, Sean Kennedy wrote:
>
> > I need to setup a catch-all address so that any email sent to an address at a
> > domain that isn't valid is sent to a specified address.
>
> Usually, people who think they need this, or are told by users they need
> this, quickly find out they really don't need this. The catchall mailbox
> is all-spam all-the-time, and is useless. Senders don't learn their
> mistyped mail is sitting in a pile of crud. Nobody wins.
>
> > I had thought you do
> > this by adding an alias in virtual_alias_maps of domain.com for the
> > specified user. So my LDAP record looks like this:
>
> This said, you are suffering from recursive expansion. When using
> catch-alls, each real address must have an identity mapping in
> virtual(5):
>
> aliasexample.com userexample.com
> userexample.com userexample.com
> example.com catch-allexample.com
>
> So your query needs to be:
>
> query_filter = (|(mail=%s)(mailAlternateAddress=%s))
> result_attribute = mail
>
> DON'T implement catch-alls, they are a terrible idea.

They're great for one-user systems (e.g. hobbyist servers) where you
want an unlimited number of predefined aliases. :)
For example, when Joe's Pizza insists on an e-mail address before allowing
me to order online, you could give him 'joespizzamydomain.com' without
having to create the alias, and without worrying about getting it created
before they attempt to send e-mail to it!

--

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Internet Services E-mail: sfsumn.edu
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