Storing Non-Delivery Reports

Applies To: Windows Server 2003, Windows Server 2003 R2, Windows Server 2003 with SP1

When a message is undeliverable, the SMTP service returns it to the sender with a non-delivery report (NDR). You can also designate that copies of the NDR be sent to a location of your choice. If the NDR cannot be delivered to the sender, a copy of the message is put in the Badmail directory.

All NDRs go through the same delivery process as other messages, including attempts to resend the message. If the NDR has reached the retry limit and cannot be delivered to the sender, a copy of the message is placed in the Badmail directory. Messages placed in the Badmail directory cannot be delivered or returned.

Important

You must be a member of the Administrators group on the local computer to perform the following procedure or procedures. As a security best practice, log on to your computer by using an account that is not in the Administrators group, and then use the runas command to run IIS Manager as an administrator. At a command prompt, type runas /User:Administrative_AccountName "mmc systemroot\system32\inetsrv\iis.msc".

Procedures

To set a storage location for NDRs

  1. In IIS Manager, right-click the SMTP virtual server, and then click Properties.

  2. Click the Messages tab, in the Send copy of Non-Delivery Report to box, type the e-mail address of the mailbox you want to use to store copies of the NDRs. This address can be any valid SMTP e-mail address and is optional. To disable the feature, clear the text box.

  3. In the Badmail directory box, type the directory you want to use to store undeliverable messages. The default location is X:\Inetpub\Mailroot\Badmail, where X is the drive on which IIS is installed. Click Browse to select another folder. You can designate a different directory, provided it is on the same computer as the SMTP service.