Sam replied:
> On Sun, 10 Oct 1999, Phil Howard wrote:
>
> > Sam replied:
> >
> > > On Sun, 10 Oct 1999, Phil Howard wrote:
> > >
> > > > Is there a way to get qmail to not give up on such messages?
> > > > Can it be done by configuration or does this require a hack?
> > >
> > > No. The remote server indicated that this is a permanent failure.
> > > Permanent failures get bounced, period.
> > >
> > > > In cases of exceeding quota, I want outgoing mail to keep trying
> > > > for just as long as it would in cases of not being able to reach
> > > > the mail host at all.
> > >
> > > This is not up to you. The remote server responded with a permanent
> > > failure code. The mail gets bounced.
> >
> > I understand that it is a permanent failure code. But clearly a full
> > mailbox is not a true permanent situation (although a spammer case is
>
> This is not your call. It is the receiving mail server that gets to
> decide what is a permanent failure, and what is a temporary failure.
But my server can decide whether to bounce it now or requeue it and try
again later as if it were a temporary error.
> > probably one that not only will not be emptied, but likely to be cut
> > off as well).
> >
> > What I was looking for is if there was a table of response codes and
> > how to act when receiving them.
>
> Well, yes. It's called RFC 822. It specifies that all 4xx error codes
> are temporary failures, and that all 5xx error codes are permanent
> failures.
I mean a programmed table in qmail, where it specifies the internal routines
for the action. If such a table is in a config file, I could change it
there. If it is in the code, I can change it there. If it's not organized
that way, I guess I'll have to code explicit checks.
> > Because of scattered documentation
> > for qmail that means I haven't yet found everything, I'm trying to
> > focus at the moment on what's important now.
>
> This has nothing to do with Qmail. This is the core definition of SMTP -
> that all 5xx error codes are permanent failures, and there's nothing that
> Qmail, or any other mail server out there, can do anything about. If
> Qmail gets ANY 5xx error code from the remote mail server, it is obligated
> to immediately return the message as undeliverable. To do otherwise would
> violate RFC 822.
My question was how make a change in qmail, not whether my change conformed
to the standards.
> All properly written mail servers will do that. Qmail is not an issue
> here. Perhaps you can persuade usa.net to issue a 422 error instead of a
> 522 error for this condition, but I don't think you'll have much success.
> usa.net does not want repeated delivery attempts when one of their
> mailboxes is full, and it is their call as far as that's concerned.
So I'll map 522 to 422, perhaps only if the string "quota", "exceeded",
or "full" is present.
--
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