Re: [exim-dev] [PATCH] Implement redirect

On Thu, Jun 29, 2006 at 05:44:28PM +0100, Tony Finch wrote:
> >
> > Yes, that's precisely what I want. Technicaly it's a reject, just with a
> > particular code (551).
>
> I can see two good ways of doing this: the minimal way, which is to add an
> ACL redirect verb which returns a 551 instead of a 550; and the complete
> way, which would be to add a :fail_551: action to the redirect router
> which causes the existing require/deny verbs to do the appropriate thing.
> The former is less invasive to Exim's code, but is fiddly to configure.

Would you accept a patch for the latter (implement :fail_551:)?

> I don't think this will be of any practical use in the public Internet,
> because all MTAs treat 551 the same as 550. It is not good enough as a
> work-around for SPF's brokenness because users ignore bounce messages
> because they do not understand them.

First off, I expect that the situation wrt 551 handling in MTAs will improve
with time.

At the moment if you generate 551 codes in the redirector, you have to accept
the compromise that it'll generate a lot of bounces. I understand that this
isn't a feature most people will use, but if the user does accept this as a
compromise, I don't see what's wrong with faciliting it.

E.g., I don't think anyone would want to use this for his main address (the one
in his From: headers), but if he has other addresses that are obsolete and/or
barely used, but still generate a lot of traffic (spam), in this situation 551
codes would be suitable.

--
Robert Millan