Re: [exim] syntactically invalid argument(s)

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Author: John W. Baxter
Date:  
To: exim-users
Subject: Re: [exim] syntactically invalid argument(s)
On 11/24/2004 2:53, "Sosa Eduardo O." <eososa@???> wrote:

> Greetings!
> Whenever my server receive an smtp transaction from a host named in the
> following way "name_host", it rejcts it with the following message.
> rejected EHLO from host76.200-71-231.telecom.net.ar [200.71.231.76]:
> syntactically invalid argument(s): server_notes3.alumni.iae.edu.ar
>

You either convince the people who run server_notes3.almuni.iae.edu.ar to
rename their server with a name which is valid for use as an email server
(no underscore) or, more likely, you give in and set the option
helo_allow_chars = _
In the main part of the Exim configuration.

There will follow here a longish discussion as to why it is wrong to "let"
servers with improper names talk to your server, vs why it is wrong to
reject messages that you or your user community want to receive. Just
ignore that, and pick one of the solutions above. (You might try convincing
the server people at the University first...if you succeed that will be one
less improperly-named server. But don't count on success.)

However, someone will give you an RFC reference showing why _ is an invalid
character (I had too strange a day to come up with one).

--John