Re: Strange SMTP errors...

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Author: Tom Samplonius
Date:  
To: Philip Hazel
CC: Jawaid Bazyar, exim-users
Subject: Re: Strange SMTP errors...

On Wed, 22 Jan 1997, Philip Hazel wrote:

> > <whine on>
> > There are far to many really-bad SMTP senders and receivers out there.
> > RFC-821 is only 68 pages, and clearly and simply written (as opposed to
> > RFC-822 which is overly complex). RFC-821 has also been out for 14
> > years!! I just don't get why so many interoperability problems and
> > bad, bad implentations still exist. I still run across that mailers that
> > don't accept "MAIL FROM:<>" (which almost always results in lost mail).
> > <whine off>
>
> Agreed. The cause of most "<>" errors seems to be erroneous Sendmail
> configuration files, since in Sendmail that is where it is handled.


I don't think so. People aren't breaking sendmail.cf as much as they
used to. A common one that I've running across is something called "X1
NT-SMTP IMail". For example:

220 X1 NT-SMTP Server lawplan.com (IMail 3.02 229-1)
helo misery.sdf.com
250 hello lawplan.com
mail from:<>
501 bogus mail from


Avoid this product like the plague, because it is obvious that the
developers have never actually read RFC-821.

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


Tom