[ On Wednesday, November 22, 2000 at 15:37:49 (EST), JDBitters@??? wrote: ]
> Subject: Re: [Exim] How to treat SMTP error 550 (Relaying denied) as a temporary fail...
>
> It is not a question of whether exim should be notified of the rejection.
> The question is should exim be able to resend the rejected message two or
> three times before bouncing it back to the original server?
No, that's not the question.
A 5xx series error is always an immediate, permantent, error.
The sending mailer must immediatly and completely bounce any message
which causes the remote mail server to generate such a response.
Anything that makes a mailer treat a 5xx response as if it were a 4xx
response is only going to cause more problems and delays.
> For example, this morning's rejection resulted from a malfunctioning
> receiving server. Once we were notified that it had been fixed the senders
> were advised to resend the rejected messages. What is sought is a way for
> exim to do it automatically and bounce back only as a last resort.
You would do well to whack the person who has configured the
malfunctioning server with a clue-by-4 up-side the head so that they
learn not to send 5xx responses when the error is only temporary.
I.e. the problem's not on your end -- it's the clueless idiot at the
other end who's at fault.
If they can't figure out when to use a 4xx error for this specific
problem then they should just take their mail server offline completely
for the duration (or at least have it return a "421 not now!" response
immediately to any connection).
--
Greg A. Woods
+1 416 218-0098 VE3TCP <gwoods@???> <robohack!woods>
Planix, Inc. <woods@???>; Secrets of the Weird <woods@???>
