> On 13 Jul 2024, at 11:14, John Fawcett via Postfix-users
> <postfix-users@postfix.org> wrote:
>
>
>
>
> On 13/07/2024 06:54, Francis Augusto Medeiros-Logeay via Postfix-users wrote:
>> Hi everyone,
>>
>> Thanks a lot for your feedback. I learned a lot. So I’ll forget the whole
>> thing.
>>
>> I have a last question, though: are there disadvantages of using a catchall
>> compared to not using it, just letting messages bounce when the address does
>> not exist instead?
>>
>> I notice that I don’t get spam with my catchall. It only gets email where
>> the sender typed the address wrongly. So I’m not having bad side effects of
>> using it. But is it wise to use it, or is it better to let servers “know”
>> when an address doesn’t exist as its own mailbox?
>>
>> Best,
>> Francis
>>
> Hi Francis
>
> I think the answer is it depends.
>
> On servers with a lot of users, I doubt anyone would want to spend time
> reading through a catchall mailbox. My guess is that catchall email volumes
> increase with the number of real users. That mailbox is going to be receiving
> email not just due to typos, but also email to now cancelled email addresses
> etc. There is a privacy question as to who would be authorized to read the
> catchall email box if the server has multiple users and/or the domain had
> email addresses that have been cancelled.
>
> The standard solution is to maintain a list of valid users and reject
> recipient addresses not in that list. But your use case may have advantages
> that outweigh any potential disadvantages. Havinga a catchall implies that
> someone is going to be checking it. In that case, with time to read the
> catchall, you may be able to find the time to notify people that their email
> went to the wrong address (for genuine looking emails of course).
>
> So ultimately, the suggestion is to weigh up advantages it gives you against
> other constraints like time it takes to manage and privacy issues.
> Personally, I wouldn't spend time on it. I reject invalid recipients. If
> people write to the wrong address they get notified and they can correct it
> if they chose and it is a setup that works without manual intervention. I may
> have lost a few marketing emails like the ones that come from "no reply"
> addresses, but I'm not going to lose sleep over it :)
>
Thanks a lot John and Peter!
In fact this is a family server, so it’s kinda important for us to not miss
emails. And it happened once that mails were not delivered because of typos.
I was a bit worried about nasty consequences when it comes to exploitation of
using carchall. I just read Peter’s answer about it, and he addresses exactly
what I was concerned about: that having a catchall would signal to the sender
that an address exists, thus inviting to spam on those addresses.
That said, I haven’t received a single spam on my catchall. I guess I’ll keep
using it until it proves itself more hassle than not, unless there are strong
reasons not to keep it.
Thanks a lot!
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