ietf-smtp
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Re: Improved straw man for retry scenarios

2008-08-09 19:22:51

John Levine wrote:
Well, I guess I was right when I suggested that a separate document to
pass along our accumulated wisdom would be a good idea.

Easier to remember straw man:
> ..
  DATA
  blah blah
  .
  554 ugh

  QUIT
  220 server

Which, if any, of a, d, and r get retried?  Why or why not?  What if
the 554 were a 421 or 451?

In your answer, please consider RFC 2821 section 4.2.5, particularly
the suggestion to requeue the message in the antepenultimate paragraph
of that section.

As I said, not straw man here.

In 2821, it was a TYPO

   When an SMTP server returns a permanent error status (5yz)
   code after the DATA command is completed with <CRLF>.<CRLF>,
   it MUST NOT make any subsequent attempt to deliver that
   message.  The SMTP client retains responsibility for delivery
   of that message and may either return it to the user or
   requeue it for a subsequent attempt (see section 4.5.4.1).

Which was fixed in 2821bis:

   When an SMTP server returns a temporary error status (4yz)
   code after the DATA command is completed with <CRLF>.<CRLF>,
   it MUST NOT make a subsequent attempt to deliver that message.
   The SMTP client retains responsibility for delivery of that
   message and may either return it to the user or requeue it for
   a subsequent attempt (see Section 4.5.4.1).

So the question is now:

Did the 8 year old 2821 document which this typo and wrong to begin with, create a new market of broken clients that will retry transaction on DATA 5yz responses, enough to remove the 2821bi correction?

I don't think so because it was wrong to begin with and there were already many servers and clients behaving correctly before 2821 came along.

--
Sincerely

Hector Santos, CTO
http://www.santronics.com
http://santronics.blogspot.com

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