On Monday 22 September 2003 20:35, Dean Anderson wrote:
On Mon, 22 Sep 2003, Larry Smith wrote:
You don't seem to understand how mail works. In both cases you get a
bounce. In neither case is a message sent.
Hmmm, again not totally true. In the first case (pre-Versign) the mail
"client" (user end of the equation - at least on all my servers) would
get an "invalid address" type error (whatever Microsoft dreams up) and
hence the message would never "leave" their machine. In the second case
(post-Verisign) the message is accepted by my server (since it cannot
tell at that stage) and it (my server) will then try to deliver.
Depending upon the error code, the server might bounce immediately, or it
might try for "x" amount of time before it bounces.
You missed the start of this discussion, I think. This is what Doug Boyer
said. However, the MUA should always hand the message to the MTA portion,
and the MTA should always return a bounce. We just went through why the
MUA shouldn't be performing these checks. You might want to go back
through the recent archives and look at this discussion.
--Dean
Have followed the thread and am aware of what has been said. Point still
remains, your comment is that in "neither" case will the message get
delivered - and my comment was "not totally true". I am not referring to the
MUA doing the check, I am referring to it being done at the MTA upon hand-off
from the MUA. Pre-Verisign "many" mail servers (mine included) would
"reject" a bogus or non-existant address _before_ receipt of the message from
the MUA therefore leaving the message on the client/customer machine (at the
MUA). Post-Verisign there is no such thing as a "non-existant" com or net
domain from the MTA point of view (eg: it will get an "answer" to any and all
queries for MX - the "A" record for verisign) hence the message is accepted
by the MTA [ this constitues first "delivery"], then it (the MTA) attempts to
deliver - and _then_ fails and is presumably returned to the originator.
If I am technically incorrect please let me know, but your comment was - and
I quote
In both cases you get a
bounce. In neither case is a message sent.
which is at least "partly" incorrect. The acceptance of a message by an MTA
for delivery constitutes a "send" condition to the MUA. Check any mail
software you wish. If you/your mail software hand a message off to the
"next" machine/system/server in your particular mail chain - then to your
mail software the message _has_ been sent. Any Outlook user can prove this
by simply checking their "sent" message folder. The fact that it is
immediately or subsequently returned does not mean it was not "sent".
This is what verisign has "changed"...
--
Larry Smith
SysAd ECSIS.NET
sysad(_at_)ecsis(_dot_)net