>Can anybody locate what the servers responsibility is with regard to
>no EHLO or HELO in RFC 2821?
>
>Under '3.3 Mail Transactions' it states:
>"If a RCPT command appears without a previous MAIL command, the
>server MUST return a 503 "Bad sequence of commands" response.
That piece isn't relevant (except for providing a guideline as to how
sequencing should be handled).
>Under '4.1.1.1 Extended HELLO (EHLO) or HELLO (HELO)' it states:
>"In any event, a client MUST issue HELO or EHLO before starting
>a mail transaction."
>
>Under '4.1.4 Order of Commands' it states:
>"A session that will contain mail transactions MUST first be
>initialized by the use of the EHLO command."
And both of these are client responsibilities. The server has a choice of
assuming that the client will behave (and accepting any consequences if it
does not), or letting the client know that there is a problem.
>My take on this is the server MUST NOT accept the MAIL FROM (a 503
>would be the appropriate response) but I'd like to know what other
>RFC aficionados think.
My take is that the server SHOULD NOT accept the MAIL FROM without the
HELO/EHLO (meaning that it is best for the server to return an error there,
but that it doesn't have to if it is willing to accept any
consequences). Although the RFC states the MUST on the client side, it
doesn't state anything on the server side.
Other mailservers do accept the MAIL FROM: without a HELO/EHLO, so it isn't
an issue unique to IMail.
-Scott
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