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BOUNCE(5)                                File Formats Manual                               BOUNCE(5)



NAME
       bounce - Postfix bounce message template format

SYNOPSIS
       bounce_template_file = /etc/postfix/bounce.cf

       postconf -b [template_file]

DESCRIPTION
       The  Postfix  bounce(8) server produces delivery status notification (DSN) messages for unde‐
       liverable mail, delayed mail, successful delivery or address verification requests.

       By default, these notifications are generated from built-in templates  with  message  headers
       and message text. Sites can override the built-in information by specifying a bounce template
       file with the bounce_template_file configuration parameter.

       This document describes the general procedure to create a bounce template file,  followed  by
       the specific details of bounce template formats.

GENERAL PROCEDURE
       To  create  a customized bounce template file, create a temporary copy of the file /etc/post‐‐
       fix/bounce.cf.default and edit the temporary file.

       To preview the results of $name expansions in the template text, use the command

           postconf -b temporary_file

       Errors in the template will be reported to the standard error stream and to the  syslog  dae‐
       mon.

       While previewing the text, be sure to pay particular attention to the expansion of time value
       parameters that appear in the delayed mail notification text.

       Once the result is satisfactory, copy the template to the Postfix configuration directory and
       specify in main.cf something like:

       /etc/postfix/main.cf:
           bounce_template_file = /etc/postfix/bounce.cf

TEMPLATE FILE FORMAT
       The template file can specify templates for failed mail, delayed mail, successful delivery or
       for address verification.  These templates are named failure_template,  delay_template,  suc‐‐
       cess_template and verify_template, respectively.  You can but do not have to specify all four
       templates in a bounce template file.

       Each template starts with "template_name = <<EOF" and ends with a line that contains the word
       "EOF" only. You can change the word EOF, but you can't enclose it in quotes as with the shell
       or with Perl (template_name = <<'EOF'). Here is an example:

           # The failure template is used for undeliverable mail.

           failure_template = <<EOF
           Charset: us-ascii
           From: MAILER-DAEMON (Mail Delivery System)
           Subject: Undelivered Mail Returned to Sender
           Postmaster-Subject: Postmaster Copy: Undelivered Mail

           This is the mail system at host $myhostname.

           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
           EOF

       The usage and specification of bounce templates is subject to the following restrictions:

       •      No special meaning is given to the backslash character or to leading whitespace; these
              are always taken literally.

       •      Inside  the  <<  context,  the "$" character is special. To produce a "$" character as
              output, specify "$$".

       •      Outside the << context, lines beginning with "#" are ignored, as are empty lines,  and
              lines consisting of whitespace only.

       Examples  of all templates can be found in the file bounce.cf.default in the Postfix configu‐
       ration directory.

TEMPLATE HEADER FORMAT
       The first portion of a bounce template consists of optional template  headers.   Some  become
       message  headers in the delivery status notification; some control the formatting of that no‐
       tification. Headers not specified in a template will be left at their default value.

       The following headers are supported:

       Charset:
              The MIME character set of the template message text.  See the "TEMPLATE  MESSAGE  TEXT
              FORMAT" description below.

       From:  The sender address in the message header of the delivery status notification.

       Subject:
              The subject in the message header of the delivery status notification that is returned
              to the sender.

       Postmaster-Subject:
              The subject that will be used in Postmaster copies of undeliverable  or  delayed  mail
              notifications. These copies are sent under control of the notify_classes configuration
              parameter.

       The usage and specification of template message headers is subject to the following  restric‐
       tions:

       •      Template  message  header  names  can  be specified in upper case, lower case or mixed
              case. Postfix always produces bounce message header labels of  the  form  "From:"  and
              "Subject:".

       •      Template message headers must not span multiple lines.

       •      Template message headers do not support $parameter expansions.

       •      Template  message  headers  must  contain  ASCII characters only, and must not contain
              ASCII null characters.

TEMPLATE MESSAGE TEXT FORMAT
       The second portion of a bounce template consists of message text. As the above example shows,
       template  message  text  may contain main.cf $parameters. Besides the parameters that are de‐
       fined in main.cf, the following parameters are treated specially depending on the suffix that
       is appended to their name.

       delay_warning_time_suffix
              Expands into the value of the delay_warning_time parameter, expressed in the time unit
              specified by suffix, which is one of seconds, minutes, hours, days, or weeks.

       maximal_queue_lifetime_suffix
              Expands into the value of the maximal_queue_lifetime parameter, expressed in the  time
              unit specified by suffix.  See above under delay_warning_time for possible suffix val‐
              ues.

       mydomain
              Expands into the value of the mydomain parameter.  With "smtputf8_enable = yes",  this
              replaces ACE labels (xn--mumble) with their UTF-8 equivalent.

              This feature is available in Postfix 3.0.

       myhostname
              Expands  into  the  value  of the myhostname parameter.  With "smtputf8_enable = yes",
              this replaces ACE labels (xn--mumble) with their UTF-8 equivalent.

              This feature is available in Postfix 3.0.

       The usage and specification of template message text is subject  to  the  following  restric‐
       tions:

       •      The  template message text is not sent in Postmaster copies of delivery status notifi‐
              cations.

       •      If the template message text contains non-ASCII characters, Postfix requires that  the
              Charset:  template header is updated.  Specify an appropriate superset of US-ASCII.  A
              superset is needed because Postfix appends ASCII text after the message template  when
              it sends a delivery status notification.

SEE ALSO
       bounce(8), Postfix delivery status notifications
       postconf(5), configuration parameters

LICENSE
       The Secure Mailer license must be distributed with this software.

HISTORY
       The Postfix bounce template format was originally developed by Nicolas Riendeau.

AUTHOR(S)
       Wietse Venema
       IBM T.J. Watson Research
       P.O. Box 704
       Yorktown Heights, NY 10598, USA

       Wietse Venema
       Google, Inc.
       111 8th Avenue
       New York, NY 10011, USA



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