Re: [exim] Dealing with "broken" mta

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Author: Philip Hazel
Date:  
To: Rafa
CC: exim-users
Subject: Re: [exim] Dealing with "broken" mta
On Wed, 8 Feb 2006, Rafa wrote:

> 220 mail.abcd.com ESMTP Postfix
> helo test
> 250 mail.abcd.com
> mail from: test@???
> 250 Ok
> rcpt to: ttee@???
> 450 <ttee@???>: User unknown in local recipient table
> data
> 554 Error: no valid recipients
>
> This causes exim to leave the message on queue and keep retrying until
> retry timeout is reached and the message is bounced/discarded, and
> after so many "450" exim stops trying to deliver and waits for the
> next retry period. This causes legitimate mails to be left in the
> queue forever (until they expire).
>
> I've contemplated a couple of options here:


Another possibility is to set a short retry time (even zero) for
abcd.com. In the retry rules, put something like

mail.abcd.com rcpt_450

to have no retries at all. That might, however, be dangerous because
there may be "genuine" 450s at times. Something liks

mail.abcd.com rcpt_450 F,2h,15m

might be safer.

-- 
Philip Hazel            University of Cambridge Computing Service
Get the Exim 4 book:    http://www.uit.co.uk/exim-book