How to disable mail for pointers?

Richard G

Verified User
Joined
Jul 6, 2008
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12,560
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Maastricht
I have some pointers, but I only want them to point to my main domain, nothing else.
Now I can put them as real domains and create a redirect, but then I got some non-important data on /home/user/domains which I don't want there.

At this moment it says YES onder "local mail". But they should not accept any mail at all.

I believe there was a plugin from Zeiter but that post was from 2010, don't know if that is still working.

Is it possible to achieve this without creating the pointers as domains?
 
MX them to another server :) Taking them out from /etc/virtual/domains would make them not to accept the mails too.
 
Hello Richard,

DirectAdmin has a native support for enabling/disabling "Local Mail Server" for pointers/aliases already. You can find an option on "Domain Pointers" page at an user level.
 
@smtalk MX to other server I tried, but then you got error notices as if you did not configure the mailserver correctly, I don't like that. I just would like them refuse mail the decent way.
I could take the out of /etc/virtual/domains since I'm an admin with SSH access. A customer would not be able to.

@zEitEr Is that present in the new theme? Because in the enhanced theme this option is not present.
There are only buttons for local mail, remote mail and delete (as in delete the pointer) in the domain pointers page.
Would be nice to have such option though.
Maybe you have it present because you created this plugin long ago? I don't know if it's still working.
 
And isn't it what you want? Disabling local mail for pointers/aliases should be done via a button "Remote Mail", so select domains and click the button.
 
I thought there would be a more decent way. As I said when using the remote MX, the sender will get his mail back with an error which looks like I would have setup the mailserver incorrectly. Not the most nicest solution. That's why.
I thought of an option where the pointer would throw a non existing email address answer.

But I will just remove the pointers from the /etc/virtual/domains maybe that looks better.
Thank you.
 
The button "Remote Mail" removes selected domains/pointers from /etc/virtual/domains without changing MX records. Just the same way as the plugin you mentioned.
 
So it's the same? Oke then this will be the result:
Code:
[email protected]
    host mail.pointerdomain.be [95.xxx.xxx.xxx]
    SMTP error from remote mail server after RCPT TO:<[email protected]:
    550 authentication required

Doesn't look very professional as return notice, like mailserver is not configured correctly. But oke, if that's the only way. It would have been nice if it said "mail address does not exists".
But better than nothing.
 
You've got options:

1, reconfigure exim per your needs
2. request/suggest changes to DA developers
3. hire somebody to reconfigure exim for you
4. use the defaults

I use the defaults and don't see anything wrong here at all.

Just a curious what else you would expect to see there? And what other examples from other mail services you have?
 
Just a curious what else you would expect to see there?
Well, just the same as one would see if the (or no) email address would exist.

And what other examples from other mail services you have?
You mean like from other panels? I don't work with pointers a lot. But since spammers are abusing them to send mail to pointers and to send mail in behalve of pointers (since normally you wouldn't create DKIM and DMARC reords there too), I discovered they could receive mail.
I thought pointers were like a kind of parked domains (so without any mail) which just pointed to another domain.
If I'm not mistaken in cPanel each parked domain has it's own mailboxes.... or none if you don't create any. But I'm not sure anymore, it's a long time ago I used pointers in Cpanel.

It's not that big a deal. I could put in a feature request, but maybe that's too much a fuzz because other solutions are possible.
 
Not only other panels, I mean any 3rd party mail or hosting services which drop different messages for non-existing domains.
 
In my experience they either state non existing messages, like "email addres does not exist", or "no such user here", "unknown recipient", or you don't get any message at all.
I've never seen "550 authentication required" messages for non existing email adresses or domaisn before.
 
Tested Godaddy, got:

- 553 Relaying disallowed

Tested OutLook, got:

- 550 5.7.606 Access denied

Well, almost the same.
 
So you got different answers from different servers. Strange.
An "access denied" would be nice also.

But now I see what you mean with other providers. I thought you ment want I would like to see which other providers show on undeliverable mail.
Sorry for the misunderstanding.

I send mail to my pointers now and got the same answers as before:
Test with Ziggo.nl (Dutch biggest ISP):
550 authentication required
Test with Gmail got:
550 authentication required
Test with Hotmail got:
Remote server returned an error -> 550 authentication required
which is odd, because hotmail and outlook are fairly the same.

So when I select "remote mail" for my pointers, it seems to always say "authentication required", which would confuse people trying to send mail to it.
As said, it's not a big deal, but it would be more professional if it would say "access denied" or one of the other things I mentioned

I wonder how you can have different returns while I get exactly the same using 3 different providers?
It's the pointers mailserver which provides the answer so strange is giving you different anwers, isn't it?
 
Probably I was not enough clean. Here is how I tested. I connected to Godaddy, HotMail/OutLook MX servers with telnet and tried to send emails to recipients with domains which are not hosted there. So I tested Godaddy, HotMail/OutLook services to see what they say if I try to send an email to a non-existing domain to them. They dropped my connection to their MX after I specified To: address with a domain which is not hosted by them, and they displayed the errors I mentioned.

Thus if you point a domain to Godaddy MX and send an email to it, you might see 553 Relaying disallowed error from Godaddy.

if you point a domain to HotMail/OutLook MX and send an email to it, you might see 550 5.7.606 Access denied error from HotMail/OutLook.

In all cases I did not have mail service on the mentioned services, I only simulate the case.
 
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Ah like that. I did not use an MX record. Just clicked external MX and that was it.

I could use hotmail mx indeed to get an access denied, but I don't trust hotmail, they might put my ip in a blacklist for too many access denies or something. I don't trust them at all.
But I might try the Ziggo MX server which also might give an access denied, then I can use that one.

Thank you.
 
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