On Mon, Aug 17, 2009 at 11:11:04AM +0100, Ian Eiloart wrote: > > > --On 17 August 2009 10:37:58 +0100 Alain Williams <[email protected]> wrote: > > >On Mon, Aug 17, 2009 at 10:23:47AM +0100, Ian Eiloart wrote: > >> > >> > >>--On 14 August 2009 17:29:12 +0100 Ian Eiloart <[email protected]> wrote: > >> > >>> > >>> Which is fine for MX servers. Not so good for MSA. MUAs (user clients) > >>> don't use MX records, and don't retry even if the smtp server address > >>> is a round robin in the DNS. At least, none of the servers that I've > >>> tried. > >>> > >> > >>Self-correction: I mean that none of the MUAs that I've tried will try > >>alternate SMTP servers, even if the DNS gives them several IP addresses > >>in a round robin. > > > >As I said: 127.0.0.1 is usually available, then rely on the local exim to > >get it right. > > > > I'm kind of assuming that we're discussing the 99.9% of users that can't > possibly benefit from this advice because they don't have the technical > skills.
Who sets the machines up ? You were talking about ''badly written web apps'' -- that implies a web server, if someone has installed that on a machine then they can install a simple exim that knows about 2 or 3 smart hosts that it punts everything to. Thus locally delivered mail will get to the next hop in a few seconds ... assuming that the local machine is connected to your local network. > Apart from which, putting mail onto a local queue that doesn't get run for > a week is exactly the problem that I just described. All it takes is for > the local exim to get shut down with the host just before you go on > holiday. It's almost exactly equivalent to the MUA doing the queuing. We > switch that off by default on our local clients so that users are made > aware that their email hasn't been delivered. Not at all. The local MUA (as you said) will only try one smarthost, a local exim will try however many you specify and succeed in less than a minute. -- Alain Williams Linux/GNU Consultant - Mail systems, Web sites, Networking, Programmer, IT Lecturer. +44 (0) 787 668 0256 http://www.phcomp.co.uk/ Parliament Hill Computers Ltd. Registration Information: http://www.phcomp.co.uk/contact.php Past chairman of UKUUG: http://www.ukuug.org/ #include <std_disclaimer.h> -- ## List details at http://lists.exim.org/mailman/listinfo/exim-users ## Exim details at http://www.exim.org/ ## Please use the Wiki with this list - http://wiki.exim.org/
