>And what did I cite wrong? The RFC?
The problem is that you didn't cite anything. Lots of people say "The RFCs say...",
when they think that they heard that something was in an RFC. The correct way to
refer to an RFC is to say something like "RFC 1123 section 5.2.9 says "An empty
reverse path must be supported".
And, IMail does support an empty reverse path. The reason RFC1123 says that an empty
reverse path must be supported is because the syntax in RFC821 didn't allow for an
empty reverse path. Although mail servers MUST support empty reverse paths, it
doesn't state whether or not the end user can change it to not accept reverse paths.
People could argue both ways (but please lets not).
> That the default configuration of Imail rejects NULL senders? No one
> has yet to definitively say that the default configuration DOES
> accept bounces.
It does. I, and a number of other people here, have set up IMail servers and know
that it does not default to reject "<>". Ipswitch added the option because of a
number of customers that wanted the feature. The only thing (in my opinion) that
Ipswitch did wrong was not to make it blatantly clear that you shouldn't change that
option.
> 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.
That's because the text of the "Reject NULL senders" option is poorly worded. Admins
change that without realizing the consequences.
> "I just installed it and didn't change anything" was his statement.
What he likely meant was, "I just installed it and don't remember changing anything
that lead me to believe that my server would reject bounce messages."
>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.
Which was a good idea. However, a few people took offense at your tone. Hopefully v7
will make the drawbacks of the option clear to the administrator.
>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.
The advice to change hosts is a good one, but the advice to change to another host
that doesn't use IMail is a bad one. I'm guessing you suggested that because you were
unaware that IMail handles the situation properly.
>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 definitely agree with you there. There are a *lot* of people running mail servers
(all mail servers, not just IMail) that aren't even very familiar with E-mail in
general.
>In a nutshell my complaint is that IMail makes it too easy to
>reject bounce messages which really pisses of mail administrators
And that is a valid complaint.
>From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]
FYI, Interland.com is using Exchange, and accepts "<>". However, their primary MX
record doesn't resolve (it's a host name with no A record). So they certainly do have
some problems!
--
-Scott
Declude: Anti-virus and Anti-spam solutions for IMail. http://www.declude.com
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