Re: [EXIM] HELO Syntax checking switch?

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Author: Ben Loyall
Date:  
To: Chris Faehl
CC: exim-users
Subject: Re: [EXIM] HELO Syntax checking switch?

I agree that the world that does it right should not have to adjust to the
world who can't do it right, but..... I do like to eat :) And since
this is caused by a bug in Micro$oft's TCP/IP stack..... history shows us
most of the world will use this program.......

We recently had to change our main dialup number. We advertised this
number for 4 weeks. In at least 5 system mailings, it was on our webpage.
I even bought radio spots talking about it. The local paper was kind
enough to do a page 1 article about it.

We still logged over 1500 trouble tickets about the number change in 2
days.

Morale of the story? customers, like children, do not listen to what you
tell them until it gets painful.

>From what I got from www.exim.org, headers_check_syntax pertains to any

header that might contain an address. like CC: Bcc: etc etc. From the
docs it looks like the _very_ first thing is the syntax check of HELO,
even before any address verification.

Thanks for the reply

Ben Loyall


On Tue, 21 Apr 1998, Chris Faehl wrote:

> >
> > I have just run into a potentialy painful problem and am hoping I can find
> > a solution here. I gave a quick search through the last 2 month's
> > archives (which have been most helpful in the past) but came up dry.
> >
> > We just upgraded our mail server from Exim 1.6x on Unixware to 1.82 then
> > 1.90 on FreeBSD. Since this upgrade we have been having problems with
> > Pegasus mailers on Win95.
> >
> > In short, due to win95 (in some circumstances) building it's hostname from
> > the username in the dialup configs, we have been seeing alot of:
> >
> > ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
> > 1998-04-20 20:29:22 rejected HELO from [209.96.179.164]: syntactically
> > invalid argument(s): ppp:tbarstow
> > ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
> >
> > And of course, Pegasus barfs and won't send the mail.
> >
> > For legacy reasons, we have to have dialup users place the ppp: in front
> > of the username. It would appear the colon is the issue.
> >
> > We have found at least 2 fixes:
> >
> > a) Pegasus has a command line switch that will let you force a valid
> > hostname
> > b) Installing MS networking on the box and specifying a valid hostname
> > there
>
> Hmmm, philosophically, I'd say you should make your clients use better
> software. The world shouldn't have to bend to accomodate brain-dead
> software.
>
> >
> > Regretably, these are 1:1 fixes, and since we have 3300 customers
> > (smallish ISP), the above are rather techdesk intensive fixes.
>
> Is it? Why not be proactive and email your clients telling them the
> fixes? Certainly you'd still have some customers calling and going
> 'huh?' but I'm sure it wouldn't be 3300.
>
> >
> > I'm hoping there is a way to disable this syntax check for a netlist as
> > that is much less painful than 3300 phone calls.
>
> I think there is, but I can't recall what directive it might be -
> maybe headers_check_syntax?
>
> >
> > Thank you for your time,
> >
> > Ben Loyall
> > Postmaster & more
> > widomaker.com
> >
> >
> > --
> > *** Exim information can be found at http://www.exim.org/ ***
> >
> >
>
>
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
> Chris Faehl                  | Email: cfaehl@???
> The University of New Mexico          | URL:   http://www.cs.unm.edu/~cfaehl
> Computer Science Dept., Rm. FEC 313   | Phone: 505/277-3016
> Albuquerque, NM  87131  USA           | FAX:   505/277-6927
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------

>
>
>
>



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