Re: [exim] broken ESMTP hosts

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Author: Nathan Ollerenshaw
Date:  
To: exim-users
Subject: Re: [exim] broken ESMTP hosts
This gets stranger;

After testing from Windows, Solaris, Linux 2.4 kernel, it seems that
this is a bug with the 2.6.x kernel!

I shall take this to the appropriate place. Thought someone might be
interested though :)

Nathan.

On Oct 25, 2004, at 1:56 PM, Nathan Ollerenshaw wrote:

> Hi all,
>
> I have a problem right now with a bunch of servers all located at the
> same company. We've tried contacting them and are waiting for a
> response, but I wondered what you guys thought about it.
>
> Basically, exim tries to do a EHLO but this doesn't work with these
> servers. They don't send back an error message, but don't accept it -
> they just seem to hang. A HELO is received normally and mail can be
> sent.
>
> ----------------------------------------------------------------
> [chrome@sa1 ~]$ telnet s202.secure.ne.jp 25
> Trying 211.9.192.21...
> Connected to s202.secure.ne.jp.
> Escape character is '^]'.
> 220 s202.secure.ne.jp ESMTP
> HELO stupendous.net
> 250 s202.secure.ne.jp
> QUIT
> 221 s202.secure.ne.jp
> Connection closed by foreign host.
> [chrome@sa1 ~]$ telnet s202.secure.ne.jp 25
> Trying 211.9.192.21...
> Connected to s202.secure.ne.jp.
> Escape character is '^]'.
> 220 s202.secure.ne.jp ESMTP
> EHLO stupendous.net
>
> [after a few minutes I give up:]
>
> QUIT
> ^]close
>
> telnet> close
> Connection closed.
> ----------------------------------------------------------------
>
> I have worked around this problem by doing the following:
>
> hostlist bad_esmtp_hosts = lsearch;/etc/exim/bad_esmtp_hosts
>
> remote_smtp:
> driver = smtp
> hosts_avoid_esmtp = +bad_esmtp_hosts
> helo_data = REAL_HOSTNAME
>
> Now, this is fine, I can now send mail to these guys, but it takes
> time for us to notice this problem when it occurs and then get it into
> the bad_esmtp_hosts file.
>
> Is there any way for exim to try SMTP after ESMTP fails for any
> reason? As I understand it, it will only fall back to SMTP if ESMTP is
> explicitly rejected.
>
> So, if we encounter another ISP with this kind of problem, at least
> the mail will get through, if a little slowly (due to the timeouts,
> retry etc).
>
> Nathan.
>
>
> --
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