Question

Why do I receive duplicate messages in my uConnect mailbox and DavisMail or other campus provided email account?

Answer

The recipient has a uConnect mailbox in addition to their primary mailbox.  A user's uConnect mailbox will receive mail sent to it from inside uConnect and assume it should be the final destination. The mailbox is unaware of the other mailbox or the fact that their MailID is directed away from uConnect.

uConnect Mailbox Policy Change

In order to ensure proper mail delivery for all users in uConnect as well as to align the uConnect internet messaging service with other central campus internet messaging services the following policy shall be implemented:

Any uConnect mailbox created to utilize the primary identity of a user for authentication and configuration must have their primary campus internet messaging address routed to uConnect.  Any secondary uConnect mailbox must have a secondary identity associated created for authentication to the mailbox.

If a secondary uConnect mailbox is desired, a secondary identity to be utilized for authentication to the secondary mailbox can be created in one of two ways:

• If an @ucdavis.edu address is required, a departmental account can be created through computing accounts to facilitate the creation of a departmental login and internet messaging address creation in the ucdavis.edu namespace.
• If any other uConnect accepted domain address is desired, an administrator can create a user in their Organizational Unit within the ou.ad3.ucdavis.edu domain, create a mailbox for that user,  and associate the internet messaging address and Exchange attributes with that user ID.

In the event that a privileged user insists on having a secondary uConnect mailbox associated with their primary user ID, all mail delivered to the secondary mailbox will be forwarded to that user’s internet messaging routing address as published in campus LDAP to ensure proper mail delivery.  This mailbox user will be charged a recurring monthly fee for forwarding support services. 

Background

Upon the roll-out of Office 365, a behavior was observed in the directory synchronization process where the User Principle Name is appended to the Proxy-Addresses attribute in the Office 365 Azure Active Directory for both user mailboxes and mail-enabled user objects.  The User Principle Name assigned to the primary UC Davis user identity is <MailID>@ucdavis.edu for all users in the uConnect Active Directory AD3 domain. The result of this behavior is that if an Office 365 user sends mail to the <MailID>@ucdavis.edu address of a user who has a mailbox in uConnect that is associated with their primary UC Davis identity and their campus mail routing is not configured to deliver mail destined for their primary internet messaging address to uConnect (referred to as a “secondary uConnect mailbox” for the remainder of this paper) will have that message erroneously delivered to their secondary uConnect mailbox due to the appendage of the UPN to their Proxy-Addresses attribute. 

Automatic Forwarding Technical Details

uConnect maintains an automation script which queries Mothra every minute for MailID routing changes.  If a MailID associated with a uConnect mailbox is found to no longer be delivering to uConnect, the mailbox is updated to store and forward all received messages to the routing address configured in Mothra. The automated process will not make changes on mailbox where its owner manually configured forwarding. The following email is also sent to the user when this action is taken:

Subject: [uConnect Automated Message] Mail Forwarding Update

Body:

Your uConnect mailbox has been updated to forward to your primary mailbox as configured in computing accounts. (Currently: <RoutingAddress>)
uConnect policy requires that if your primary mailbox does not reside in uConnect all messages delivered to your uConnect mailbox must be auto-forwarded to your primary mailbox. If this policy is not enforced, some messages intended to reach you will not be routed correctly.
If you have any questions, please contact your department IT staff or email uconnect-help@ucdavis.edu.

If a mailbox that was previously auto-configured for forwarding is found to have its associated Mothra MailID delivering to uConnect, the previously configured forwarding will be removed.  There are other cases where mailboxes are created or removed and forwarding should be auto-updated.  In this cases, a script runs once per night and updates forwarding addresses as needed.  User/Admins/ITX employees can update a user's forwarding address manually to ensure user's with dual mailboxes receive email as expected externally.

When user has been enabled for auto-forwarding, they are added to the ad3\Office365-AutoForwards group.  This group is managed by the automation script and should not be manually updated.

Note:  Mailboxes with forwarding SMTP addresses will forward all mail except for automatic replies by design.