Question

MDaemon generating NDR with text "Your message does not contain a valid command for this mail server to process. No action has been taken"

Asked by: netstarukltd

Hi

We have MDaemon email server on a site and one of the users is getting emails from MDaemon as below:

From: MDaemon@clientdomain.com [mailto:MDaemon@clientdomain.com]
Sent: 15 June 2009 13:42
To: lindar@ncytrust.org
Subject: No valid command found

Your message does not contain a valid command for this mail server to process.  No action has been taken.

Message-Id: <FA3RN22309.MXI285@189.xx.yyy.97>
From: lindar@clientdomain.com
Time-Stamp: Mon, 15 Jun 2009 09:39:49 -0300
: Message contains [1] file attachments

The attachment in the email is a junk message selling a weight loss program. The junk message is from the address lindar@clientdomain.com which is the same as the recipient.

It appears MDaemon got this message from outside from a spammer, rejected it for whatever reason "no valid command" and attempted to send this report to the sender. Because the sender address was same as recipient, the report ended up in spam recipient's mailbox.

I want to know what this message from MDaemon means and how I can configure it to drop all emails coming in FROM OUTSIDE with our own domain as the sender. (We don't have a spam filter here with SPF/Sender ID).

Appreciate the help.

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Asked On
2009-06-23 at 03:25:26ID24514107
Tags

MDaemon

,

email

,

NDR

,

smtp

,

SPF

Topics

Mdaemon

,

Simple Mail Transfer Protocol (SMTP)

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Answers

 

by: moorhouselondonPosted on 2009-06-23 at 03:41:01ID: 24690555

Setup BackScatter protection in Mdaemon.  You will need to ensure that BackScatter protection doesn't reject anything for a few days until you are sure that any non-BackScatter protected messages have gone through the system, otherwise you may not receive an NDR when you should receive one.  This topic is explained in the Mdaemon help, so if you find my explanation confusing, have a look at the help.  Do remember to enable it after a few days however, as otherwise you will wonder why you're still receiving cr@p lol.

 

by: netstarukltdPosted on 2009-06-24 at 04:01:24ID: 24699889

I understand what BackScatter is - a neat way to get your junk message into the targets mailbox attached to an NDR. However, this isn't BackScatter as the non-delivery report was generated by our MDaemon itself. Instead of delivering the spam to the internal target, it bounced the email and tried to send to sender. The sender address however was the same as recipient (attempting to get junk through by using a trust address in sender) so the spam target ended up getting the non-delivery report. Because MDaemon attaches original messages to NDRs, the junk message came in as well.

Can't seem to find an explanation for why MDaemon rejected this message.

 

by: moorhouselondonPosted on 2009-06-24 at 11:39:44ID: 24704257

There's various settings in Security which need to be reviewed

Security Settings, Relay Control: All three categories need to be ticked, and none of the subsidiary boxes.

SMTP Authentication: You could always dictate that local senders need to Authenticate before sending.

Trusted Hosts: should really be blank on both sides.

In the Setup menu, Preferences, System you can rename the system account from Mdaemon to anything you like, to deter anyone who knows this is an Mdaemon mail server (not rocket science) from prodding the system account.

...and turn BackScatter on too...

If there's still a problem then you can use Content Filter to help out.  For instance, if all local accounts send messages with a tailor made header in them (e.g., X-WESENTTHIS), then any incoming messages purporting to come from local accounts that don't have this header in them can safely be discarded, but this is more or less what BackScatter does automatically for you.

 

by: netstarukltdPosted on 2009-09-21 at 07:29:48ID: 25383194

Relay was set up correctly already.
Cannot do smtp authentication as that'd stop incoming emails.
No trusted hosts.
Backscatter on already.

Abandoned as the the junk NDRs stopped automatically.

 

by: netstarukltdPosted on 2009-10-15 at 10:10:50ID: 25582549

No solution found.

20120131-EE-VQP-002

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