--On 29 June 2010 13:24:28 +0100 David Woodhouse <dwmw2@???>
wrote:
> 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.
In our case, when we're failing to accept the mail, it's almost always
because the sending server is misconfigured.
>> > 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
--
Ian Eiloart
IT Services, University of Sussex
01273-873148 x3148
For new support requests, see
http://www.sussex.ac.uk/its/help/
