Email Auto BCC (whenever an email is sent, send a copy to an email)

[VojkanC]

Hi,

One of my clients would like to have control of emails sent over company's email addresses.
Their request is to enable email administrator to receive all emails sent by certain email accounts.
I didn't find anything similar in Plesk.

Can someone please help me with this task?

Here is explanation:
1. User abc@xyz.com wants to send an email to def@ghj.com
2. Email server should accept email from abc@xyz.com, send it to def@ghj.com, but also send a copy of the email to the admin@xyz.com

 

[VojkanC]

Currently, there is similar option for controlling distribution of received email.
In other words, if abc@xyz.com receives an email from def@ghj.com I can easily set up mail forwarding in:
Home / Domains / mydomain.com / Mail / Email Addresses
The only thing I need to do is to check option Switch on mail forwarding and enter an email address in the field Forward incoming messages to the following email address.

I'd like to see something similar in Plesk options, but I would be satisfied with any other way of enabling this feature.

 

[VojkanC]

Can anyone please help me with this issue?
Any help is much appreciated.

 

[trialotto]

@VojkanC

You can simply enter multiple mail addresses in the "mail forwarding" part of the Plesk Panel, separate them by adding each mail address on a new line.

Other methods exists, but they should not be preferred: they are labour-intensive and error-prone, while the "forwarding" option has the advantage that copies of mail data remain in the various mailboxes, which is extremely convenient (for many reasons).

Hope this helps, otherwise ask a more specific question.

Regards......

 

[G J Piper]

@VojkanC
You can simply enter multiple mail addresses in the "mail forwarding" part of the Plesk Panel, separate them by adding each mail address on a new line.
Other methods exists, but they should not be preferred: they are labour-intensive and error-prone, while the "forwarding" option has the advantage that copies of mail data remain in the various mailboxes, which is extremely convenient (for many reasons).
Hope this helps, otherwise ask a more specific question.

I believe the question was about how to get a BCC on every email going out, not coming in. Forwarding will only work on incoming email. I don't know of any means to get a copy of all outgoing email delivered locally.

 

[trialotto]

@G J Piper

You stated

I believe the question was about how to get a BCC on every email going out, not coming in.

and the answer to the question of the threadstarter had already been provided by the threadstarter and confirmed by me.

Forwarding is a simple solution and simple answer to the original question: instead of sending to mail address A, one sends to mail address B, that has a number of forwards.

Mail address A and B can coincide (read: be the same).

The essence? Well, having a mailbox that functions as a primitive, but effective relay and sending all (relevant) mails to that relay.

No need to bother about various mail server settings and/or a difference between incoming and outgoing mail traffic (if any relevance of this difference exists at all).

What are the alternatives? Well, I will give some rough outlines:

1 - an email alias: two mail accounts accessing the same mail server and mailbox, a copy is absent (one and the same mailbox)
2 - a separate mail account, configured to access/use the mailbox of another mail account: accessing different mail servers, but sharing one mailbox, a copy is absent
3 - a separate mail account, configured to receive mail for another mail account: accessing the same mail server, two mailboxes, which are duplicates

The above mentioned alternatives are summarized in an increasing degree of difficulty for the configuration required.

Nevertheless, none of the alternatives is a good option: it is better (read: best) to use the "forwarding" option.

Note that the degree of difficulty for configuration also depends on the mail server type (read: Postfix or Qmail): in Qmail, it is sometimes as simple as adding one line to one file (but that still has some negative implications, like having the lack of control over mail processes and/or the possibility to use spam filters properly and so on).

In short, just disregard the alternatives.

Hope the above explains a little bit.

Regards...

 

[G J Piper]

@G J Piper
and the answer to the question of the threadstarter had already been provided by the threadstarter and confirmed by me.

Your confirmation appears to be in error. I think the original "threadstarter" (VojkanC) gave the email address "def@ghj.com" to represent any destination email address the sender wishes to send email to. This would not be possible with email forwarding.

VojkanC, if you could specify whether this is correct or not we can clear this up.

(I believe the "administrator" wants to covertly get a copy of all outgoing emails.)

 

[neutron]

Sometimes i ask myself why pepole make simple things so complex....

IF you are using Postfix, there are 2 simple commands you can use in your main.cf:

sender_bcc_maps and recipient_bcc_maps.

Have a look at this example here:

http://www.sudosu.in/2013/06/create-bcc-of-incoming-and-outgoing_26.html

 

[trialotto]

@neutron,

Yep, I was asking myself the same thing, after being rather flabergasted about the annoying disturbance of @G J Piper, even after the thread starter seems to have "disappeared".

In qmail, it is a simple as making some additional files (in the qmail directories) and adding a line with the syntax "&<mail>@<domain>.<tld>".

And Plesk takes care of that configuration already (at least a huge part of it).

It is just a simple task, if the xyz and ghj domains are on the Plesk instance (and not all recommended if the ghj domains is not on the Plesk instance, the custom configuration settings should then be present on the mail server responsible for the ghj domains).

Moreover, why take the difficult path, if a mail library such as PHP mailer can take care of everything? That is, adding CC, BCC, appropriate headers etc.

Anyway, BCC-ing has the particular disadvantage of only having a BCC sent to a mail address, that is essentially: forwarding without keeping a copy.

In general, every solution has it´s advantages and disadvantages, but in this topic thread that does not seem to matter: the topic thread seems to become a discussion whether the question of the thread starter has been interpreted correctly (and that really bothers me, to be honest).

For that reason, I am opting out of this topic thread, even though I certainly agree with you, @neutron.

Regards....

 

[G J Piper]

Yep, I was asking myself the same thing, after being rather flabergasted about the annoying disturbance of @G J Piper, ...

No need to be such an a**. Consider yourself ignored... you rake me over the coals every time I post anything.

 

[trialotto]

@G J Piper

The reason why I wanted to opt out of this topic thread is to prevent anything happening like "you rake me over the coals every time I post anything." (your statement).

To be honest, your post is not rather graceful, if I were you, I would not be bothered about the whole thing: no personal offense intended, no personal offense taken.

Regards....

 

[VojkanC]

Thank you all very much for your replies.

@trialotto
As I stated earlier, forwarding receiving emails to an email is rather easy.
I am using that feature since 2008.

What I would like to accomplish it to be able to receive all emails sent by junior employees over companies domain.
I am using PostFix, so I would appreciate if you could instruct me on how to achieve this without changing MTA.

@G J Piper
I think you understand my question perfectly.
Can you please instruct me on solution that is based on PostFix MTA?

@neutron
Your solution looks like something that might work.
I'll get back to you once I try this approach.
Thank you very much.

 

[trialotto]

@VojkanC

Let´s await the responses of the other two gentlemen, if they do not provide a ready-steady solution within a couple of days, just start a conversation with me.

A small tip, with respect to the three solutions, suggested in the link of @neutron:

1 - the "always_bcc" alternative is not an option for what you are trying to achieve, (and)
2 - the "recipient_bcc_maps" alternative is not relevant, (and)
3 - the "sender_bcc_maps" alternative is the option of interest,

and note that some interesting information can be found on http://www.postfix.org/postconf.5.html and http://www.postfix.org/postconf.5.html#sender_bcc_maps.

Also note that the default Postfix configuration uses the concepts of forwarding and aliases.

In short, if the ghj domain is on the Plesk instance, just use a forward.

However, if the ghj domain is not on the Plesk instance, just create a separate (local) mailbox and add a forward to that (local) mailbox.

In your scenario, that would be abc@xyz.com sending to the separate (local) mailbox admin@xyz.com, which automatically forwards to def@ghj.com.

Maybe I am not understanding your scenario, but that would do the trick, that´s all.

No fuss about bbc-ing (and all the problems associated with and/or that can arise due to implementations of "recipient_bcc_maps" and "sender_bcc_maps").

Again, I can be mistaken, so let´s await the responses of both gentleman.

Regards........

 

[G J Piper]

Thank you all very much for your replies.
@G J Piper
I think you understand my question perfectly.
Can you please instruct me on solution that is based on PostFix MTA?

@VojkanC
After researching it a little, it appears the always_bcc feature that @neutron mentioned might be a workable option.
In the admin (BCC destination) email account you would need to find a way to silently filter out all emails except your own domain name though, allowing only the emails from your domain name to get in.
The admin could have the filtered account as a second email account to check, or have it then forward to an account he actually uses (because the BCC destination acct wouldn't be able to receive any email except from your own domain). Let me know if that makes sense.

 

[trialotto]

@G J Piper,

The "always_bcc" option is a bad idea, unless you want to send all messages to another address.

In postfix, you cannot filter out mails, the "always_bcc" option will send a BCC of all mails that enter postfix: you will in essence copy/forward all mails of customers, clients, admins etc.

That would be rather exposing the entire mail system and all of its mailbox contents to one mailbox, by bbc-ing to that mailbox.

Regards....

 

[shah]

My service is Plesk WINDOWS,
Could anyone tell me what about Windows based server to do this matter?
Thanks in Advance

 

[G J Piper]

@G J Piper,
The "always_bcc" option is a bad idea, unless you want to send all messages to another address.
In postfix, you cannot filter out mails, the "always_bcc" option will send a BCC of all mails that enter postfix: you will in essence copy/forward all mails of customers, clients, admins etc.
That would be rather exposing the entire mail system and all of its mailbox contents to one mailbox, by bbc-ing to that mailbox.
Regards....

The one mailbox should only be the Admin's of course. I do it on a temporary basis, but only while I am attending the mailbox, because it is then simple to see what email account is sending spam. Basically I add the "always_bcc" for about 5 minutes just to see where the spam is coming from.

In this case I want to see all email from the server get copied to my admin mailbox, but only for testing for spammers. Also, I filter email from postfix all the time using Spamassassin and custom rules.