Re: [Exim] Problems sending mail to Group Wise ( 503 )

Top Page
Delete this message
Reply to this message
Author: Philip Hazel
Date:  
To: Dariusz Pietrzak
CC: exim-users
Subject: Re: [Exim] Problems sending mail to Group Wise ( 503 )
On Fri, 28 Mar 2003, Dariusz Pietrzak wrote:

> SMTP error from remote mailer after DATA: host host.na.me
> [127.0.0.1]: 503 Bad command sequence
>
> according to exim source all 5xx error messages mean that message is
> undeliverable permanently, but when I saved one of trouble-causing
> messages and tried to send it at later time it went through OK.


The problem is at the receiving end. Exim is following RFC 2821
here. All 5xx errors are permanent errors. That is how SMTP is defined.
End of story, I'm afraid.

> What is more, most of the problems are with messages with multiple
> receipients, and few of first go ok, rest fail with 503...
> I tried modifying exim so it won't mark 5xx as permanent failure, and
> now when there are problems it freezes offending messages, and when I
> unfreeze them they go through ok.
>
> What should I do?


Tell the postmaster or sysadmin at the receiving host that they are
running a broken SMTP server. They will lose mail until it gets fixed.

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