Contents

Introduction

Description

Introduction

This document describes what happens when you see the error  "Envelope sender domain does not exist" in the ESA mail logs.

Description

The Cisco Email Security Appliance (ESA) makes an MX record query for the domain of the sender address. It then performs an A record lookup on the MX records. If, for any of these queries, the DNS server returns 'NXDOMAIN' (there is no record for this domain), the ESA treats that domain as non-existent. This falls into the category of "envelope senders whose domain does not exist."  NXDOMAIN can mean that the root name servers are not providing any authoritative name servers for this domain.

Example:

Mon Nov 20 10:50:05 2006 Info: New SMTP ICID 1605269 interface InternalNet

(10.101.150.43) address 192.168.23.36 reverse DNS host small-mail.example.com

verified yes

Mon Nov 20 10:50:05 2006 Info: ICID 1605269 ACCEPT SG UNKNOWNLIST match

sbrs[0.0:10.0] SBRS 3.5

Mon Nov 20 10:50:05 2006 Info: ICID 1605269 Address: < jane@example.com> sender

rejected, envelope sender domain does not exist

Mon Nov 20 10:50:05 2006 Info: ICID 1605269 lost

Mon Nov 20 10:50:05 2006 Info: ICID 1605269 close