Stop Sendmail from bouncing unknown user?

[Richard Thomas]

paddy wrote:

>But I didn't mean to imply a legal meaning at all, I'm afraid its just
>the syle of the language I used.
>
>
I get you now. It just seemed that you were implying that the RFC
*should* be followed. I was simply suggesting a weaker position.

>I meant to imply an technical/ethical/moral meaning - what _should_ one do?
>
>
I would suggest that depends on context. Our users, for example, just
want to receive email, don't want to be deluged by spam and wouldn't
even know what an RFC was. As such, I have no problems setting up my
mail server to be noncompliant. It's not hard to think of situtions
(though I would suggest they are rare) where full RFC compliance was
required.

>In particular, as I hoped was clear, to say that I view one option as
>a poor choice to be avoided if possible, and to solicit discussion of
>this view, if necessary.
>
>
Unfortunately, the forging of return headers has made replies,
particularly warning of virus or spam detection, to those addresses at
best useless and at worst, an annoyance of equal magnitude to the
original mail. I would expect that if the RFC were rewritten, that
section would be modified to change that "MUST" to a "SHOULD" or "MAY"
or include wording about exceptions being made where there is reason to
doubt that the reverse path is the true originator.

Really, I hate dropping mail on the floor. Part of the big plus of SMTP
is that generally, mail either gets delivered or bounced so it is
usually possible to trace errors. Unfortunately, it turns out that SMTP
was too reliant on the honesty of people and to stick to the rules
reduces its usefulness greatly.

Rich

--
MIS Department      |                           |Phone: +1 615 312 5787
840 Crescent Ctr Dr | Psychiatric Solutions Inc |Fax:   +1 615 312 5711
Suite 460           |                           |
Franklin, TN 37067  |                           |


------------------------ MailScanner list ------------------------
To unsubscribe, email jiscmail at jiscmail.ac.uk with the words:
'leave mailscanner' in the body of the email.
Before posting, read the MAQ (http://www.mailscanner.biz/maq/) and
the archives (http://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/lists/mailscanner.html).

Support MailScanner development - buy the book off the website!

    [ Part 2, "S/MIME Cryptographic Signature"  ]
    [ Application/X-PKCS7-SIGNATURE  4.4KB. ]
    [ Unable to print this part. ]