Re: [exim] listed at Backscatterer.org

On Tue, 2010-06-29 at 12:52 +0100, Jethro R Binks wrote:
> On Tue, 29 Jun 2010, Ian Eiloart wrote:
>
> > --On 29 June 2010 10:51:00 +0100 David Woodhouse <dwmw2@???>
> > wrote:
> >
> > > Users still won't bother to read them, and will prefer to ask a sysadmin
> > > who will have read the words on the user's screen to them, before the
> > > user actually understands.
>
> Some of those users have no interest in hearing the sysadmin read the
> words to them or having an understanding of what they mean; they are
> showing them to the sysadmin purely so that he'll do something to make the
> problem go away.

It's often a problem which is entirely outside the realm of the local
sysadmin, though. It's almost always the _remote_ server which is
failing to accept the mail.

Occasionally that might be because of a local problem, such as being on
a blacklist or lacking reverse DNS, that the local sysadmin can deal
with. Mostly it's not though.

> > Well, that will often be the case. I'm just saying that a bounce message
> > has more chance of conveying useful information if its created by the
> > receiving server than the sending server. Why? Because the best the
> > sending server can do is try to interpret the SMTP (enhanced?) error
> > code, and wrap the SMTP error text.
>
> Not to mention that if you issue multi-line rejection messages, you may
> find that the sender receives back an error report with one of:
>
> 1. all of your carefully crafted lines;
>
> 2. the first line;
>
> 3. the last line; or
>
> 4. none of them, and to boot, an incorrect or misleading error message
> resulting from invalid assumptions by the sending server.

In cases 2-4, I suppose it _is_ correct for the users to bug their
sysadmin, until such time as he/she fixes the mail server so that it
_does_ correctly cite the SMTP error.

--
dwmw2