SOLVED Question regarding email addresses containing a "+" sign

Hello,

We have a client where they have their default address set to deliver all unrouted mail to a forwarder which then is supposed to go to a real mailbox on the server.

So it goes *default account* > *forwarder* > *mailbox*.

The client has mentioned that in the past, he has had no problems with people sending emails to his domain with a + sign in it. For example: test+email@example.com

However, recently he has noticed that none of these emails are being received. Running an exim test returns the following:

# exim -bt test+email@example.com
mail to test+email@example.com is discarded

There seems to be no global or individual mail filters on his cPanel account.

Also, if I run the same test as above but without a "+" sign then it shows a successful delivery to the desired mailbox.

We set up an identical setup on a different cPanel server and it delivers perfectly fine through to the desired mailbox as well.

Are there any settings in Exim that would prevent the use of a "+" symbol?

Thanks!

 

Ok so we were able to narrow down where the problem is:

In this case, the client was receiving email to "external+test@example.com". This email account doesn't exist, it is caught in the default mail account catch-all, which then forwards through to "external@example.com" (which is an email forwarder).

The email is discarded, however sending to "external1+test@example.com" works.

So it seems that there is a problem when the part before the "+" sign on the email address that is being sent to matches the part before the @ symbol on the email forwarder.

 

Hi @cPanelMichael,

The client was wanting to receive email to "external+test@example.com". I don't think it was for the purpose of sub-addressing though; he just wanted a + sign in his email. This email account doesn't exist, instead it is caught in the default mail account catch-all, which then forwards through to "external@example.com".

In the above case, mail is discarded, perhaps because the folder "test" doesn't exist?? However sending to "external1+test@example.com" works.