On Sun, 4 Feb 2007, Eric A. Hall wrote:
Now, given that we are working in a pure SMTP model, it becomes pretty
important to do things "the SMTP way" and while it is possible to always
return 2xx at the envelope, it's probably not accurate if in fact you
expect to respond with failure codes to some of those recipients later on.
The SMTP way here is to be up-front about the staggered model; you know
that some of them will fail, and unless the recipient is absolutely known
not to fail (eg postmaster@, abuse@, or a lawyer that has to keep copies
of all correspondence, or whatever), the right way to respond to the
envelope address is to issue a 3xx, so that the client knows that the
recipient may yet be refused. This is just common courtesy, and it also
follows the same kind of design as other places in the protocol
At the moment 250 a reply to RCPT is provisional because the server can
still decide to reject after the DATA, so I don't see how 3yz is more like
the SMTP way.
Tony.
--
f.a.n.finch <dot(_at_)dotat(_dot_)at> http://dotat.at/
FISHER: NORTHWEST 5 TO 7, OCCASIONALLY GALE 8 AT FIRST, DECREASING 4 LATER.
ROUGH OCCASIONALLY VERY ROUGH AT FIRST. MAINLY FAIR. GOOD.