North American Network Operators Group Date Prev | Date Next | Date Index | Thread Index | Author Index | Historical RE: mail does bounce (was: Customers down?)
> > > > I think I like it better that way. Just because both nameservers are > > > temporarily down doesn't mean the domain doesn't exist. :P > > > > Seems to me you're talking past one another. If all nameservers for a > > domain are down there *is* no nameserver which can say that the domain > > is authoritatively non-existent. (OK, you could get a negative caching > > answer from one of the authoritative servers on the level above, but > > that's a different issue...) > > > > I agree with Greg Woods - if a domain is authoritatively non-existent, > > I'd expect a sane mailer to bounce the message. > > I'm glad that you don't write code, especially sendmail code. > > I'm hoping that some clarification of terms will kill this thread... There is a difference between the following terms: Authoritatively Non-existant domain: A domain for which the servers authoritative for the parent zone report that the domain does not exist. Unreachable Authoritative Servers: A domain which exists and posesses a delegation in it's parent servers, but which authoritative servers are currently not reachable. The former is regarded as a permanent error and mail is immediately bounced by every mailer I know of. The latter is a transient error and is treated as such by sendmail. I would hope it would be treated as such by other mailers. Owen |