About how spam is handled when addressed to distribution lists

Products

• Messaging Gateway

Issue/Introduction

 

Resolution

If Spam Quarantine is enabled, a spam message that is sent to an alias with a one-to-one correspondence to a user's email address is delivered to the user's normal quarantine mailbox. For example, if "tom" is an alias for "tomevans," the quarantined messages that are sent to "tom" or to "tomevans" all arrive in the Spam Quarantine account for "tomevans."

Note:

An "alias" on UNIX or "distribution list" on Windows is an email address that translates to one or more other email addresses. In this text, distribution list is used to mean an email address that translates to two or more email addresses.

Symantec Messaging Gateway does not deliver a spam message that is sent to a distribution list in the intended recipients' Spam Quarantine mailboxes. Instead, the message is delivered in a special Spam Quarantine mailbox for that distribution list. However, you can configure Spam Quarantine to send notification digests about the messages in a distribution list mailbox to the recipients of that distribution list. You configure this option by selecting the Notify distribution lists check box on the Quarantine Settings page.

Note:

When there is one or more address resolution DDS source, and the Expand Distribution Lists option is enabled, distribution lists expand to a recipient list of individual users before the message is sent to quarantine. In this case, individual users receive notifications from the user template, not the distribution list template.

If the Include View link box is selected, a list of the quarantined distribution list messages is included in the notification digest. Each message has a View link that users can click to view that message in Spam Quarantine. If the Include Release link box is selected, each message that is listed in the digest has a Release link. Users can click this link to release that distribution list message without accessing Spam Quarantine. If any one recipient clicks the Release link for a message in the quarantined distribution list mailbox, the message is delivered to the normal inboxes of all distribution list recipients. The View link and Release link do not appear if the notification format is text only.

Table: Distribution list notification and delivery examples provides an example of how messages are routed to members of distribution lists.

Table: Distribution list notification and delivery examples

Scenario	Result
A distribution list that is called mktng contains Ruth, Fareed, and Darren	Spam sent to mktng and configured to be quarantined is not delivered to the Spam Quarantine inboxes for Ruth, Fareed, and Darren.
The Notify distribution lists check box on the Quarantine Settings page is selected	Ruth, Fareed, and Darren receive email notifications about the quarantined mktng messages.
The Include View link box is selected on the Quarantine Settings page	Ruth, Fareed, and Darren can view the quarantined mktng messages by clicking on the View link in the notification digests.
The Include Release link box is also selected	Ruth, Fareed, and Darren can redeliver any quarantined mktng message by clicking on the Release option in the notification digest.
Ruth clicks the Release option for a quarantined mktng message	The message is delivered to the normal inboxes of Ruth, Fareed, and Darren.