Re: [exim] problems with retry logic

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Author: Philip Hazel
Date:  
To: Pavel Gulchouck
CC: exim-users
Subject: Re: [exim] problems with retry logic
On Fri, 5 May 2006, Pavel Gulchouck wrote:

> I have a default retry line:
>
> # Domain               Error       Retries
> # ------               -----       -------
> *                      *           F,2h,15m; G,16h,1h,1.5; F,4d,6h

>
> 1. When many undelivirable messages to the single email exists in the
> queue, exim makes only single delivery attempt each time. Messages
> are very old (8 days and older), so each time exim deletes only one
> message from the queue, and says "retry time not reached" about
> other messages to the same address.


That should not happen. What kind of delivery problem? Local? Remote?
Have you tried running a delivery with debugging turned on for one of
these messages?

> IMHO more reasonable behavior
> is to delete (or freeze and then delete) all messages to this
> destination older then 4 days.


That is what should happen.

> root@hamster:~>exim -v -q 1FZbYM-000IDB-Hk 1FZbrw-000HzZ-Up
> LOG: queue_run MAIN
> Start queue run: pid=47160
> delivering 1FZbrw-000HzZ-Up (queue run pid 47160)
> LOG: retry_defer MAIN
> == frenzy2008@??? routing defer (-51): retry time not reached
> delivering 1FZbYM-000IDB-Hk (queue run pid 47160)
> LOG: retry_defer MAIN
> == frenzy2008@??? routing defer (-51): retry time not reached
> LOG: queue_run MAIN
> End queue run: pid=47160


When the retry time *is* reached, those messages should be tried, and
then deleted. Sounds like something is going wrong at that point. Debug
output might show what.

> 2. Sometimes I see following life of the message:
>
> root@hamster:~>grep 1FbcLg-0003Cg-3G /var/log/maillog
> May 4 14:50:24 hamster exim[12318]: 1FbcLg-0003Cg-3G <= netmon@??? H=f16.pfts.com [213.133.160.25] P=esmtps X=TLSv1:AES256-SHA:256 S=682 id=L66pOY9UXEX3kVSZ@??? from <netmon@???> for alarm@???
> May 4 14:50:25 hamster exim[12319]: 1FbcLg-0003Cg-3G == its@??? <alarm@???> R=dnslookup T=remote_smtp defer (-44): SMTP error from remote mail server after RCPT TO:<its@???>: host relay2.carrier.kiev.ua [193.193.193.119]: 450 4.7.1 <its@???>... No route back to <netmon@???>, best MX unavailable. (relay2.pfts.com) RCPT TO: 250 Accepted
> May 4 15:10:38 hamster exim[13981]: 1FbcLg-0003Cg-3G Completed
>
> No delivery, no bounces, no retries. :-(


That looks most weird. But I note there was a 20-minute delay, which is
also odd.

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