Xref: utzoo comp.mail.sendmail:325 comp.protocols.tcp-ip:5738 Path: utzoo!utgpu!watmath!clyde!att!osu-cis!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!bloom-beacon!apple!bionet!lear From: lear@NET.BIO.NET (Eliot Lear) Newsgroups: comp.mail.sendmail,comp.protocols.tcp-ip Subject: implementation question Message-ID: Date: 12 Dec 88 07:44:22 GMT Organization: Natl Computer Resource for Mol. Biology Lines: 30 I have always believed that the general rule for implementations is that they should expect the least from other implementations, and be as robust as possible, as far as conformance to a given RFC is concerned. With that thought in mind, I have a question for TCP-IP implementors who have done SMTP implementations. Given a permanent error condition and that you control SMTP server code, which do you believe to be the better action? [a] Immediately have a server respond with an error to the SMTP client leave the client to report the error. [b] Receive the message and report the error directly to the sender. Solution [a] is the straight forward method which programs such as most incarnations of sendmail use. I know of at least one implementation that has used solution [b] in the past. The reason for using solution [b] is that I would not have to rely on any other implementation to properly dispose of the error. I have heard of at least one implementation that considered a particular permanent error response as temporary, and the fact that it was blatantly wrong didn't stop it from continually retrying our host. Using solution [b] eliminates such bizarre cases, but places honus of error handling on the server. What's your opinion? -- Eliot Lear [lear@net.bio.net]