Eli you need to be one hell of a lot more careful about how you reply to
your e-mail. The message you replied to was _NOT_ sent to the
exim-users mailing list, and I explicitly gave it my own reply-to address.
DO NOT POST REPLIES TO PRIVATE MESSAGES!
[ On Friday, June 17, 2005 at 16:12:07 (-0400), Eli wrote: ]
> Subject: RE: [exim] a large number of domains fronted by Exim are refusing bounces...
>
> If you're having trouble seeing my point of view on this, I
> agree that admins who are blocking bounces are doing something fairly
> stupid. However, I don't agree with you that it should be the job of the
> software they use to make that choice any more difficult than it currently
> is (or isn't - meaning it could be very easy to do).
Error handling in SMTP (i.e. the use of newly generated notifications
messages which are sent to the original sender address, and with a null
sender path) is a core feature and requirement of the SMTP protocol. It
is inherent in its store-and-forward design and it "MUST" (STD's 3 & 10)
not be messed with if e-mail is to enjoy any degree of robustness and
reliability.
Therefore a robust implementation of SMTP "MUST" make it difficult for
an ignorant postmaster to purposefully screw up e-mail error handling.
> Simply put, your frustration is understood, but you're kicking the wrong
> people.
Some other SMTP implementations don't seem to have this problem to this
same degree. Error messages "MUST" be treated specially [*].
(though yet further ones do suffer it even worse -- sadly Exim is not
alone here)
[*] that's not to say that all error messages must be accepted --
clearly error messages to non-existant recipients are bogus and may
safely be rejected (since they're not deliverable anyway), as perhaps
are those containing known junk content, etc.
--
Greg A. Woods
H:+1 416 218-0098 W:+1 416 489-5852 x122 VE3TCP RoboHack <woods@???>
Planix, Inc. <woods@???> Secrets of the Weird <woods@???>
