Re: [Exim] nessus and exim

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Author: Philip Hazel
Date:  
To: Lorens Kockum
CC: exim-users
Subject: Re: [Exim] nessus and exim
On 3 Apr 2000, Lorens Kockum wrote:

> I have transmitted your point of view to Renaud, who responded
> that instead of a 550 for EXPN (Failure) he expected 500,
> 501, 502, 504 (Error). Sendmail and postfix send 502. After
> reviewing the RFC wrt exim's behaviour, he has patched nessus
> accordingly (cvs/nessus-plugins/scripts/sendmail_expn.nasl).


I tend to work from the revised RFC (which is not yet an RFC,
unfortunately). What it says is

   550 Requested action not taken: mailbox unavailable                   
      (e.g., mailbox not found, no access, or command rejected           
      for policy reasons)            


It's that "command rejected for policy reasons" that I used. It is more
accurate than

500 syntax error, command unrecognized
502 command not implemented
504 command parameter not implemented

Of course, the list in RFC 821 and in the new RFC both show the folly of
trying to anticipate all the new circumstances that are going to arise.
Trying to be clever with them takes the "S" out of SMTP. IMHO, of
course.

-- 
Philip Hazel            University of Cambridge Computing Service,
ph10@???      Cambridge, England. Phone: +44 1223 334714.