Hi Everyone,

I am in the process of creating a webmail front end for our email server and want to incorporate access to the users quarantine folder as part of it. This is relatively easy to do but I have just come across an issue which I am stuck on, namely what to display as the sender of a quarantined email.

Let me explain that a little. As an example, I have pasted in a few headers of a sample quarantined email. The "X-TNC" headers are inserted by us so that we can acurately track each email. I have also disguised my email address as steve@xyz.com !!

X-TNC-GUID: c333b4a0a37e4a65b95528fedede8efc
X-TNC-Sending-IP: 207.106.200.7
X-TNC-Recipients: steve@xyz.com
X-TNC-Sender: rIwMjMxstMzszJysTIyMtEa0zAwcDAxMrA==@smtp-verifiedoptin-01.aweber.com
To: "Steve" <steve@xyz.com>
From: "Duncan Elliott" <marketinghelp@2u.co.uk>
Sender: <2u@aweber.com>
X-Loop: 2u@aweber.com
X-Mailer: AWeber 4.0
X-Subscription: Subscribed on 12/14/2007, via web form, by 89.248.135.127
X-Verification: Verified by 89.248.135.127
X_Id: 357691:02-13-2008-11-23-53:steve@xyz.com/510136
Date: Wed, 13 Feb 2008 11:34:59 -0500
Subject: Steve this ends tomorrow
X-Server: LogSat Software SMTP Server
X-SF-RX-Return-Path: <rIwMjMxstMzszJysTIyMtEa0zAwcDAxMrA==@smtp-verifiedoptin-01.aweber.com>
X-SF-HELO-Domain: smtp-verifiedoptin-01.aweber.com
X-SF-Originating-IP: 207.106.200.7

Now, when this email arrived, SF sees tat is came from "rIwMjMxstMzszJysTIyMtEa0zAwcDAxMrA==@smtp-verifiedoptin-01.aweber.com", but when it is displayed in an email client, the sender is shown as "Duncan Elliott" <marketinghelp@2u.co.uk>

So, two questions spring to mind, firstly, what should the sender be displayed as??? the SMTP envelope address, or the display address????
Secondly, what does SF filter on using the sender blacklist?? is it presumably the SMTP envelope address or is it the display address??

If anyone has any ideas, thoughts or suggestions, they would be greatly apprecieted.

Thanks.

Edited by StevenJohns - 15 February 2008 at 7:30am

The email address specified int he "From:" email header (From: "Duncan Elliott" <marketinghelp@2u.co.uk>) is what is usually used by emails clients to display the sender's info.

SpamFilter only acts upon the email address specified int he MAIL FROM command. The address specified in that command is added by SpamFilter in the "Return-Path" headers. As email mail server will replace this header, when forwarding the email to your server, your server will overwrite that header (although usually it should add the same address that was there to begin with...). For this reason, SpamFilter also adds the following header which also contains the "MAIL FROM" address that was provided to SpamFilter:
X-SF-RX-Return-Path: <rIwMjMxstMzszJysTIyMtEa0zAwcDAxMrA==@smtp-verifiedoptin-01.aweber.com>

As far as the if the "From:" header and the "MAIL FROM" address should be the same, they usually are for emails created by humans. They may different in automated notifications to better handle email bounces, as the "MAIL FROM" address is what is supposed to be used to email back notifications to in case of delivery issues.