:: Opened 2007-10-09 19:35
With the recent global increase in the quantity of Spam email, the use of catchall email addresses (everything@your_domain.co.uk) has created problems for the Toucan outbound relays. The larger queue lengths have caused some email to be delayed for significant periods of time. The number of load-balanced relays has been increased to maintain a quality service; however the underlying cause needs to be addressed. A catchall email address accepts all email sent to any address within an email domain (everything@your_domain.co.uk) - whether or not the email address exists. Catchalls used to be a useful facility before Spam became a problem, but Catchalls have become increasingly untenable as Spam levels have escalated.

Catchalls are now no longer a practical mail configuration and we urge clients with such configurations to review the revision of their email facilities with us, for their benefit as well as others. An update to the Exim mailserver configuration will route email being forwarded from catchall addresses via a separate set of outbound relay queues and IP addresses. This is intended to reduce queue times for non-catchall email.

Our efforts will be focussed on supporting non-catchall email. Issues relating to catchall email addresses will receive lower priority. Further steps to mitigate the issues caused by the use of catchall addresses will be considered if necessary. The new Exim configuration will be rolled out today.

Clients with Catchall addresses can discuss this with us and we will be pleased to advise on the best options to suit individual requirements.