Hey Dan,
I know I should just let it rest and not waste all these electrons
that in all probability have more important things to do, but hey,
I just can't...
The flame explanation comes from experience. Boring abusive flames
are a waste of time, real witty pearlers live on, they make everyone
laugh and the mocked feel seriously mocked. Noone's gotta tell you
(or me) this, its just common sense, although some old hands will
drop some hints to newbies.
And what did I cite wrong? The RFC? That the default configuration
of Imail rejects NULL senders? No one has yet to definitively say
that the default configuration DOES accept bounces. Unfortunately
your ranting doesn't pass as an authoritative source. My assumption
about this was based upon my (albeit) limited hands on experience
with Imail, where the administrator wasn't aware that <> senders
were being rejected by his system. "I just installed it and didn't
change anything" was his statement. And I keep on getting these "501
Bogus Mail From" messages from numerous Imail systems (I'd guesstimate
at least 50 different systems in the past 12 months) and we really
don't communicate with a large number of mail systems or receive a
hugely voluminous stream of email.
>Out of how many Imail installations in total (there are hods of them)
>have this problem? I don't know, but I am sure that it is quite small.
Problem is the administrators of these systems don't know either!
>I also have a theory that if Mail Admins A, B and C have their
>servers set up badly, then complaing to Mail Admins X, Y and Z
>will not be very productive.
That's why I sent my complaint to this forum. I thought that the
best way to have some action taken about this MTA's anti-social
behaviour was to direct the complaint to a discussion forum which
is maintained by the vendor of the product which is causing this
problem.
For your and everyone else on this lists edification below is part
of a message which was sent to me by a mailing list administrator
who uses a hosting system which uses Imail.
Some background information:-
I complained to this person about bounces ending up in my postmaster
account (they still do) and he tried to get his mail hosting service
to change their Imail configuration so he doesn't get flamed by irate
postmasters.
Now he is asking me for advice because he is at the end of his
tether, he still gets flamed by many irate postmasters and his
mail provider won't or can't configure the Imail system which he
uses to send his mailing list so that it accepts bounces. My advice
was to change hosts, preferably to one which doesn't use Imail.
If a professional hosting service can't configure their Imail
systems so that it confirms to Internet standards what hope has
the average Joe?
I'll sign off now. Flames etc, gratefully accepted and replied to.
In a nutshell my complaint is that IMail makes it too easy to
reject bounce messages which really pisses of mail administrators
(just ask Xerox).
Cheers,
The Still Irate Postmaster.
PS Telnet to port 25 on 63.84.174.249 and watch those bounces bounce.
--------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]
Sent: 27 February 2001 17:44
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: Interland Customer Support for Ticket#: 392280 (General
Questions/General)
Dear DAVID,
Interland feels that your issue with some-site.com has been resolved. If
this is not the case, or if there are additional issues, please feel free to
reopen the ticket and add more information.
Please reference the Ticket Number: 392280 Opened on: 2/23/2001 9:08:34 PM
if you encounter the same problem again.
The following information is provided to better assist you in preventing
similar issues.
Ticket SuperCategory: General Questions
Ticket Category: General
Problem History on Ticket:
2/23/2001 9:08:34 PM - Interland Customer - Please refer to Ticket
#384109. My reply is below. Your system will not accept my efforts to
re-open the ticket, so I have to create a new ticket:
------------------
Your response is unacceptable. You are in BREACH of Internet Standard
RFC-2505. This causes chaos in the internet community, including mail loops.
This is NOT the solution to spam. If you do not comply with the standard and
accept NULL<> Senders, then I will report Interland to the relevant
standards authorities. Please see below a complaint received from the Xerox
Postmaster:
--------------------------------
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: Your mailer needs to accept <> sender!
Postmaster:
Please find attached a message which indicates that there is a problem
with the configuration of your mailer software. As evidenced below, you are
currently rejecting messages with a NULL (<>) sender address. Mailers are
REQUIRED by the RFCs to accept mail with <> sender, since this is
what is used by delivery-notification messages (to prevent mail loops). In
particular, refer to RFC 2505, which states:
2.6.1. "MAIL From: <>"
The MTA MUST NOT refuse to receive "MAIL From: <>".
The "MAIL From: <>" address is used in error messages from the mail
system itself, e.g. when a legitimate mail relay is used and forwards
an error message back to the user. Refusing to receive such mail
means that users may not be notified of errors in their outgong mail,
e.g. "User unknown", which will no doubt wreak more havoc to the
mail community than spam does.
The most common case of such legitimate "MAIL From: <>" is to one
recipient, i.e. an error message returned to one single individual.
Since spammers have used "MAIL From: <>" to send to many recipients,
it is tempting to either reject such mail completely or to reject all
but the first recipient. However, there are legitimate causes for an
error mail to go to multiple recipients, e.g. a list with several
list owners, all located at the same remote site, and thus the MTA
MUST NOT refuse "MAIL From: <>" even in this case.
By disallowing the NULL sender, you prevent the delivery of DSN
messages (such as delivery failed or return receipt). This not only annoys
remote postmasters (who end up with all these bounces in their mailboxes)
but
more importantly for you robs your users of the information contained in
these
messages. In this case, a mailing list at your site contains a bad Xerox
address on its subscriber list. Because the DSN is not being delivered back
to either the owner of the mailing or to your list management software, the
bad address is never removed from the list. This means that EVERY message
sent out from that list generates one of these 'double-bounce' messages!
It is also quite likely that any DSNs coming _from_ your domain will be
blocked, so remote users also will not know if a message to a user in your
domain is not being delivered.
Please remove this block to bring your site into RFC compliance and to
allow remote and local users the benefits of the DSN messages which are now
being blocked.
Thanks!
Postmaster
EDS/Xerox Internet Services Europe
Solution History on Ticket:
2/27/2001 5:59:18 PM - RYBURN CLAY - Dear David,
We hope that we were able to assist you with your inquiries today. Please
send your concerns to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
If you are still having issues feel free to contact us at Tech Support.
Thank you for calling Tech Support.
Ryburn Clay
Tech Support
In an effort to better assist you, our customer, please feel free to comment
on your experience at the following location:
Http://OnlineSupport.interland.com
Please visit our Web Site Http://Support.Interland.com to check on the
status of your trouble ticket or to create a new one.
Thank you for choosing Interland!
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