Re: Bug in smtp retry timeout?

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Author: Philip Hazel
Date:  
To: John Henders
CC: exim-users
New-Topics: exim's retry database acting up
Subject: Re: Bug in smtp retry timeout?
On Mon, 6 Jan 1997, John Henders wrote:

> I've found something very odd with one particular machine I'm trying to
> send mail to.


I have found out what is going on. Adding some additional debugging
statements to Exim gave

Connecting to fw1.vtc.edu.hk [202.40.210.221] ... connected
SMTP response timeout = 300
SMTP input line incomplete in one buffer
SMTP response timeout = 300

This indicates that the site is sending back its SMTP responses without
a terminating \r\n at the end of each one. Exim reads input until it
finds \r\n, and so, not finding \r\n in the first TCP/IP buffer, it
tries to read another one.

I guess (though I haven't yet verified) they are just terminated with
\n. This is not in accordance with what RFC 821 and all subsequent
recommendations say. Presumably it works when you telnet directly
because telnet recognizes \n as terminating the line.

I will check this out further to verify my hypothesis, just in case
there's something that Exim is doing wrong here.

--
Philip Hazel                   University Computing Service,
ph10@???             New Museums Site, Cambridge CB2 3QG,
P.Hazel@???          England.  Phone: +44 1223 334714