Continuing the discussion from Routing all non existing emails to a defined email:
email arriving at a domain that have no user account bounce = OK
email arriving at a domain that have no user account go into a catch-all “account” = OK
But is it possible to do both ? So that the email is only forwarded to the catch-all but still bounced to the sender.
Actually it would also be nice to give a more polite “autoreply message” to the sender along with the “bounce” is there somewhere to edit that?
Configure the email address created by default (in the format of domain@domain.tld) to act as catch-all as well as autoresponder.
https://www.virtualmin.com/documentation/tutorial/how-to-create-email-auto-responder/
It might work. It will accept all mail and send out a polite message for every email that is received.
I’ve never done this myself but it should work.
Thanks, but no it didn’t. The sent email is trapped by the catch-all (as expected) and it forwards quite happily but the sender receives nothing not the bounced message or the auto response.
I already have an auto responder on another user and that works.
Interesting. So it is an either / or situation.
If so, the Virtualmin interface should me made to reflect that.
You could break it up into a two step / two mailbox process. For example:
One mailbox operates as catch-call and forwards to the second (local) mailbox.
The second mailbox operates as autoresponder.
Or permutation of the same. Whatever works.
No, not that either. 
The forwarded email arrives OK but existence of a catch-all seems to prevent the bounce which is the essential step.
Ok, then I had better stop making suggestions based on theory and get down to configuring a system to produce the desired results. Shall come back to you if I succeed.
In the meantime, if anyone else has something to say about this, the floor is yours.
The tech doesn’t work this way. And what you’re trying to do doesn’t make sense to me.
You can create a catch-all address and have an autoreply with a polite massage.
But a bounce happen when there’s no way of successful delivery. Delivering to a catch-all address is a successful delivery. You can’t have a mail delivered to an address and have it bounce back at the same time (Electronic or Postal).
If someone accepted your mail, that’s a delivery. And a delivery is a delivery.
You are right. A bounce is a bounce and a delivery is a delivery.
For the purpose of this problem , let’s treat a polite autoresponder message the equivalent of a bounce.
If we can get Virtualmin to catch-all and then generate a polite auto response, it will serve @Stegan purposes.
An auto responder does not include the original message so cannot act as a bounce.
You want to peek at Schrödinger’s cat and have both outcomes equal true?
Don’t dead cats bounce 'cause emails do.
I have concluded that the blunt bounce message is provided by the client email program - after all if the sent email cannot reach a destination then how could it be generated there? So the bounce message is not editable? I had thought that “domain only” (@domain.com) messages were handled by some default alias (eg hostname@domain.com) as they must reach the server - otherwise the catch-all would not work. This must be the correct conclusion or there must be a default bounce message on the server!
You’re so confused. And clearly you don’t understand how this works. If I were you, I would stop trying to come up with theories. And try to learn things as is. I thought about skipping this topic because it doesn’t make any sense. Rather stupid if you ask me. But this is going to live on internet as long as this forum is alive.
When you’re sending an email, the destination is the recipient’s mailbox. You assume it’s the client mail sever. But it’s not. Client mailserver tries to deliver it to the recipient, and when it can’t the email bounces.
The keyword here is “deliver”, this doesn’t mean that the recipient mailbox doesn’t exist. Recipient mailbox could exist and email could still bounce. Because the mail can’t be delivered for some other reason.
I’m not saying you can’t edit a bounce message, you could if you have correct programming skills. But bounces have more important use-case in sender reputation. So it’s better to leave it alone.