Are rejection messages stored anywhere on a postfix server

email-serverpostfix

I am working, with very limited experience, to recover messages that were sent to an address on a postfix email server that had been forwarded to a bad address. So the messages were rejected, but were attached to the rejection notice. A sample rejection notice is below.

What I'm hoping is that the rejection messages might be stored somewhere on the server, so that I could retrieve them and get the attached messages. Seems unlikely, but what the heck.

Also, there is no postmaster alias setup on this server. I'm guessing the thing to have done would have been to setup so that things like this go to a postmaster account, but I'm just coming in to something I know nothing about.

This is the mail system at host daisy.example.com.

I'm sorry to have to inform you that your message could not
be delivered to one or more recipients. It's attached below.

For further assistance, please send mail to postmaster.

If you do so, please include this problem report. You can
delete your own text from the attached returned message.

              The mail system

(expanded from ): host
logjam.mail.protection.example.com[192.0.2.10] said: 550 5.4.1
[metzger@logjam.example.com]: Recipient address rejected: Access >denied
(in reply to RCPT TO command)

Final-Recipient: rfc822; metzger@logjam.example.com
Original-Recipient: rfc822;metzger@example.org
Action: failed
Status: 5.4.1
Remote-MTA: dns; logjam.mail.protection.example.com
Diagnostic-Code: smtp; 550 5.4.1 [metzger@logjam.example.com]: Recipient
address rejected: Access denied

Best Answer

In a typical postfix configuration, they are not saved, but it is possible. See for example: Is it possible to hold rejected messages in a queue?

See if you have defer_if_reject set to true in main.cf.

Since recipient checking happens early, it's unlikely any content filters would save the messages either (but see smtpd_milters, smtpd_proxy_* in your main.cf).

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