What happens to journaled mail when it NDRs ?
If you're implementing Exchange envelope journaling, then you've probably wondered what happens to journaled messages that cannot be delivered or NDR.
Journaled or archived messages are considered as system messages. What this means is, if your journal messages result in NDRs (Non-Deliverable Reports), then they might blackhole or dissapear.
Okay, so you're using this feature to meet regulatory compliance or maybe some other legal requirement. It's important to try as best as you can to preserve all archived mail, even the ones that result in NDRs. When a journal message is in transit, the RFC 2821 sender is a null address or < >, so is the return path. What this means is, if a journal messages has to be returned undeliverabl, it has no where to go to since the sender is < >. This will cause the message to end up in the badmail directory.
In Exchange 2003 SP1, the mailroo\vsi1\badmail folder is disabled, and does not receive undeliverable content. You can enable the badmail directory to start receiving undeliverable content, but cautiously do this since it may open you up for DoS on the badmail directory if you are spammed heavily from the internet. Enabling badmail will give you the opportunity to still have a copy of the journaled messages
