How can I prevent my .forward from being included in sendmails bounce messages?
I am rejecting some unwanted messages by setting EXITCODE to a suitable value (see separate question about that) but the generated bounce will include my .forward file, which will reveal to a human reader that my account in fact does exist, and it won’t really allow me to explain the reason for the bounce, either. Can I make the bounce include a better explanation to the receiver of the bounce, or otherwise customize it? A: If your site is using Procmail as your local MDA, you shouldn’t have this problem. Perhaps you can persuade your admin to install Procmail site-wide, in which case you will have more control over generated bounce messages in general. If that’s not an option, your best bet is probably to simply generate an autoreply which looks like a bounce message, instead of letting sendmail generate the bounce message for you. Required reading: RFC1894, or get one of the existing bounce generators (there’s at least one; see the Links page for more information).
