[exim] Early retry timeout

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Author: Nikolaus Rath
Date:  
To: exim-users
Subject: [exim] Early retry timeout
Hello,

I just received the following bounce from my exim server:

A message that you sent could not be delivered to one or more of its
recipients. This is a permanent error. The following address(es) failed:

  fmjvisas@???
    SMTP error from remote mail server after RCPT TO:<fmjvisas@???>:
    host haig-ee.state.gov [169.253.194.10]: 451 4.3.2 Please try again later:
    retry timeout exceeded


However, this mail was only sent a few minutes ago:

# grep state.gov /var/log/exim4/mainlog
2012-06-18 18:44:27 1Sggw6-0002OE-1y SMTP error from remote mail server after RCPT TO:<fmjvisas@???>: host stimson.state.gov [169.252.4.131]: 451 4.3.2 Please try again later
2012-06-18 18:44:28 1Sggw6-0002OE-1y == fmjvisas@??? R=dnslookup T=remote_smtp defer (-44): SMTP error from remote mail server after RCPT TO:<fmjvisas@???>: host haig-ee.state.gov [169.253.194.10]: 451 4.3.2 Please try again later
2012-06-18 18:44:29 1Sggw6-0002OE-1y ** fmjvisas@???: retry timeout exceeded

I'm using the default retry rule:

# exim -brt state.gov
Retry rule: * * F,2h,15m; G,16h,1h,1.5; F,4d,6h;

and the retry db says:

# exim_dumpdb /var/spool/exim4 retry
[...]
R:fmjvisas@???:<Nikolaus@???> -44 13133 SMTP error from remote mail server after RCPT TO:<fmjvisas@???>: host haig-ee.state.gov [169.253.194.10]: 451 4.3.2 Please try again later
13-Jun-2012 17:29:36 18-Jun-2012 18:44:29 19-Jun-2012 00:44:29 *
[..]

An earlier email to the same address was delivered fine with proper
retries:

2012-06-13 17:29:35 1SerNt-0002jb-0R SMTP error from remote mail server after RCPT TO:<fmjvisas@???>: host stimson.state.gov [169.252.4.131]: 451 4.3.2 Please try again later
2012-06-13 17:29:36 1SerNt-0002jb-0R == fmjvisas@??? R=dnslookup T=remote_smtp defer (-44): SMTP error from remote mail server after RCPT TO:<fmjvisas@???>: host haig-ee.state.gov [169.253.194.10]: 451 4.3.2 Please try again later
2012-06-13 17:34:11 1SerNt-0002jb-0R == fmjvisas@??? routing defer (-51): retry time not reached
2012-06-13 18:04:11 1SerNt-0002jb-0R SMTP error from remote mail server after RCPT TO:<fmjvisas@???>: host haig-ee.state.gov [169.253.194.10]: 451 4.3.2 Please try again later
2012-06-13 18:04:11 1SerNt-0002jb-0R == fmjvisas@??? R=dnslookup T=remote_smtp defer (-44): SMTP error from remote mail server after RCPT TO:<fmjvisas@???>: host stimson.state.gov [169.252.4.131]: 451 4.3.2 Please try again later
2012-06-13 18:34:11 1SerNt-0002jb-0R SMTP error from remote mail server after RCPT TO:<fmjvisas@???>: host haig-ee.state.gov [169.253.194.10]: 451 4.3.2 Please try again later
2012-06-13 18:34:12 1SerNt-0002jb-0R => fmjvisas@??? R=dnslookup T=remote_smtp H=stimson.state.gov [169.252.4.131] X=TLS1.0:RSA_AES_256_CBC_SHA1:32 CV=no
2012-06-13 18:34:12 1SerNt-0002jb-0R Completed

Can someone explain why this mail was bounced so quickly?

Exim 4.71.

Best,


-Nikolaus

--
»Time flies like an arrow, fruit flies like a Banana.«

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