On Sun, 25 Mar 2001, Peter Radcliffe wrote:
> > human intervention is _recommended_ in order to reattempt
> > (deliveries) in the face of one, but the rfcs do give example of
> > reattempts in the same SMTP session, eg "Too Many Recipients
> > Scenario" on pp63 of rfc 821
>
> > S: RCPT TO:<eric@???>
> > R: 552 Recipient storage full, try again in another transaction
>
> Errors are context sensitive. 5xx doesn't always mean "disconnect and
> go away". Here it means "I won't take any more 'RCPT TO:'s for this
> message, send the rest seperately".
Sorry, I beg to differ. 5xx after RCPT means "this recipient is
unacceptable - bounce it". Remember that an MTA need only look at the
first digit of a response code (and Exim does indeed look only at the
first digit). What is needed for "try again later" is a 4xx response.
> The appropriate response here to
> this 552 code is, as the example gives, to finish giving RCPT TO:s and
> to send the data section of the message.
That is correct, but it shouldn't retry the other RCPTs later. It should
bounce them.
--
Philip Hazel University of Cambridge Computing Service,
ph10@??? Cambridge, England. Phone: +44 1223 334714.
