On Fri, 24 Jun 2005, Alan J. Flavell wrote: > > > I heard some rumors about SMTP-servers having problems with multiline > > > 5xx-messages and I want to be on the safe side of the game. > > > > Such servers are hopelessly broken, if they exist. > > They certainly exist.
Sigh. Yes. ... > > The specification for multiline responses has been around for over > > 20 years. > > A certain dominant vendor does not read interworking specifications, > that's only too clear. Something based on the following which I wrote was relayed to MS via one of the MS contacts involved in our Exchange (2003) server implementation. I expect it isn't the only time they've received notification of this problem. ============================================================================== Issues: Exchange not reporting full error message text back to user Exchange's explanatory error message is inaccurate and misleading Description: An Exchange user sent an email, and campus-mail-hub rejected it because there were syntax errors in the headers. Unfortunately, this is what the user got, when Exchange generated an error mail back to them: "" The following recipient(s) could not be reached: '[EMAIL PROTECTED]' on 08/06/2005 11:16 There was a SMTP communication problem with the recipient's email server. Please contact your system administrator. <BE-SCAM.ds.strath.ac.uk #5.5.0 smtp;550-Syntax error in the headers of your message.> "" I have two main complaints about this. The first is that the communication problem isn't with "the recipient's email server" - it is with the next-hop SMTP server. Exchange is assuming it always sends to MX itself; in our environment, it only forwards Internet mail to one host (campus-mail-hub), which handles onward delivery to the Internet. In this case, the recipient of the above error message spent some time talking to @example.com people who of course said there wasn't a problem with their mail server ... The other issue is that when reporting the error: 550-Syntax error in the headers of your message. it only returns the first line of the multi-line error message that campus-mail-hub issues, which explains nothing. Here's an example of the full error, which is more informative (if still a bit cryptic): 550-Syntax error in the headers of your message. 550-Rejected after DATA: malformed address: '>\n may not follow 550-"[EMAIL PROTECTED]" <'[EMAIL PROTECTED]: failing address in "To" header is: 550 "[EMAIL PROTECTED]" <'[EMAIL PROTECTED]'> Why does Exchange not properly report the full error message? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Jethro R Binks Computing Officer, IT Services University Of Strathclyde, Glasgow, UK -- ## List details at http://www.exim.org/mailman/listinfo/exim-users ## Exim details at http://www.exim.org/ ## Please use the Wiki with this list - http://www.exim.org/eximwiki/
