Re: [Exim] RBL rejection at processing time

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Author: Dave C.
Date:  
To: Andrey Novikov
CC: exim-users
Subject: Re: [Exim] RBL rejection at processing time

On Tue, 10 Aug 1999, Andrey Novikov wrote:

> Hello,
>
> I've set up RBL rejection and suddenly found that there are
> too many open relays - nearly half of our customers and
> partners couldn't send mail to us.
> I've opened main addresses (such as sales, contact, etc)
> with recipients_reject_except, but remained with rejection
> for others. The problem moved a little and now is as
> follows:
>
> As all of you know RBL rejection occurs during RCPT TO
> and ends with 'User unknown':
>
> RCPT To:<novikov@???>
> 550-Open relay - see http://www.orbs.org/verify.cgi?address=194.154.71.131
> 550 mail from 194.154.71.131 rejected: administrative prohibition
> 550 <novikov@???>... User unknown
>
> What does damn sendmail - it sends e-mail like:
> Subject:      Returned mail: User unknown

>
> The original message was received at Tue, 10 Aug 1999 14:55:16 +0400
> from g630.lamport.ru [194.154.71.137]
>
>     ----- The following addresses had permanent fatal errors -----
> <novikov@???>

>
>     ----- Transcript of session follows -----
>  ... while talking to gate.web2000.ru.:
>  >>> RCPT To:<novikov@???>
>  <<< 550-Open relay - see
>  http://www.orbs.org/verify.cgi?address=194.154.71.131
>  <<< 550 mail from 194.154.71.131 rejected: administrative prohibition
>  550 <novikov@???>... User unknown

>
> The common enduser sees the subject 'User unknown' and
> panics (not in UNIX concept :). Even if he tries to read the
> next part he understands nothing (he doesn't know what open
> relay means).


Way too many people dont seem to READ what messages say..

Anyway, many of us (including myself) dont want to accept a message
from a host listed in the RBL.. Way too many have false/bogus envelope
senders.. And to do so would defeat the entire reason we use RBL..

What might be a good idea, is instead of exim saying "550 ... user
unkown", would be to allow the string after the 550 to be configurable
(possibly with an expansion, including the rbl_text).. Remote mailers
dont parse antything but the 550, but hopefully sendmail is inserting
the text that comes after, rather than interpreting the 550 and
displaying its own messages.. Is there perhaps another 5xx code that
exim could use on RBL that just means something along the lines of "I
dont want to accept mail from you for this user", but does not
necesarrily mean "user unknown" ?


> So what do I want is to NOT reject mail at SMTP time but
> rather to catch it at delivery time and to generate human
> readable reply containing some info from original message
> (like error messages in Exim). Any suggestions?
>
> Best regards,
>  Andrey                          mailto:scriber@webclub.ru

>
>
>
>
> --
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