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North American Network Operators Group Date Prev | Date Next | Date Index | Thread Index | Author Index | Historical Re: mail does bounce (was: Customers down?)
> On Sun, Jan 02, 2000 at 12:31:00PM -0800, Owen DeLong wrote: > > Attempting to resolve a.b.c.d.e.f.g.h.i > > > > If you get back a return value from DNS that says > > "Authoritative answer, a.b.c.d.e.f.g.h.i does not exist" > > Bounce the mail. > > > > If you get back a return that says > > "Resolving a.b.c.d.e.f.g.h.i timed out without a return" > > Queue the mail. > > > > This also works for i, h.i, g.h.i, f.g.h.i, etc. > > I agree that this is the most sensible minimum functionality. What do you > break if you treat what you consider persistent terminal conditions as > transient? > Usually, if I send something to [email protected] instead of [email protected], I get a bounce back before I depart my MUA. You would break that. > Perhaps your business policy is to deliver all mail that can possibly be > delivered, making the assumption that everything's transient unless the system > has what it considers reasonable proof that it is indeed permanent (after > for instance several attempts spread out over a period of time). > I think that an authoritative nameserver saying "I know for certain that domain xyz doesn't exist." is reasonable proof that an error requiring intervention exists. > Personally, I don't like systems which do not have backup paths to deal with > transient conditions. And we do know that even "authoritative does not exist" > can be a transient error condition caused by a registry glitch etc. Sure, we > can all just ignore reality and assume we live in a perfect world, but.... > But a registry glitch is an error requiring intervention, therefore, I would much rather receive my mail back immediately so that I can intervene, than have it sit there while everything else breaks hoping that it will eventually clear itself. Owen > Cheers, > Chris > > -- > Christian Kuhtz Architecture, BellSouth.net > <[email protected]> -wk, <[email protected]> -hm Atlanta, GA > "Speaking for myself only." >
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