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From: bengsig@oracle.nl (Bjorn Engsig)
Newsgroups: comp.mail.sendmail
Subject: Keeping mail in the queue when mail cannot be delivered
Keywords: Specific mailers, queue, sendmail.cf
Message-ID: <449.nlhp3@oracle.nl>
Date: 21 Jun 89 11:48:26 GMT
Reply-To: bengsig@oracle.nl (Bjorn Engsig)
Organization: ORACLE Europe, The Netherlands
Lines: 24


In one of our sendmail.cf's, I use a specific mailer defined with a
Mmailer line.  There can be more reasons for this mailer not being able
to deliver the mail:

1. The address given to it is invalid, unknown, etc

2. The mailer is temporarily unable to deliver the mail, e.g. another
   machine is down, disconnected from the network etc.

What I would like to do, is to return the mail to sender in case 1, but
simply let the mail be in the sendmail queue in case 2 and let sendmail
try again on it's next queue run.  Currently, my mailer prints error
messages and returns non-zero in both cases, whereby sendmail returns the
whole thing to the sender.

How do I specify, that sendmail should keep the mail in the queue like it
does it with currently unreachble tcp machines.  I do not want to change
sendmail itself, but only the sendmail.cf and the mailer program.
Any good solutions, less good ones, kludges, etc. are very welcome.
-- 
Bjorn Engsig, ORACLE Europe         \ /    "Hofstadter's Law:  It always takes
Path:   mcvax!orcenl!bengsig         X      longer than you expect, even if you
Domain: bengsig@oracle.nl           / \     take into account Hofstadter's Law"