I am using a smarthost that blocks null senders by default.  They have indicated that they can provide an override for our server to allow null senders, but the e-mail from null senders will go out a "high risk" IP that is likely to get blacklisted because e-mail from null senders is triggering more blacklisting as of late.  I would prefer to make Exchange populate the sender field on the outbound auto-reply / out of office messages.  Is this possible?

It is possible but the RFC for Automatic Responses to Email doesn't recommend it. The reasoning is to prevent auto-response loops.

More reading: RFC 3834

I would suggest looking into a more appropriate configuration for your smarthost so that it still achieves its purpose but allows standards complaint, wanted email.

Exchange 2013 does not send automatic responses to the same address more than once per automatic response configuration, so an auto-response loop shouldn't be possible.  That having been said, if automatic responses are being deleted in the fight against spam due to the null sender, I would prefer to avoid that scenario by not using a null sender.  In a perfect world, I would use a noreply/blackhole type address in lieu of a null sender, if that isn't an option, I would rather send with the appropriate address related to the auto-responder than use a null one and have users complaining because business contacts did not receive the auto responder due to an RBL.  Since you say it is possible, can you point me toward documentation on the reconfiguring Exchange?

Hi PRDIT,

Based on my knowledge, it is impossible to achieve this goal by normal method directly.

 

Thanks

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