On 3/10/07, Darren Spruell <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
On 3/10/07, Philip Guenther <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
...
> They (the text in SMTP responses) won't show up in the headers, but
> they may show up in the body of DSNs or bounces generated by the
> client.  Yes, that can happen even when the response is a 4xy
> temporary failure if the client has hit its "report delay" timeout or
> "give up completely" timeout for delivery attempts.  That won't occur
> under normal circumstances with normal timeouts, but let's imagine
> that connectivity to your mailserver was disrupted for a day ("backhoe
> induced fadeout?"); clients may hit their "delay" timeout right after
> their first chance to connect to you.  Unlikely, but possible.

I'm referring to the HELO/EHLO, RCPT TO, and MAIL FROM verbs.

Under no circumstances I'm aware of will you see the output of these
verbs in a bounce message. Is this not so?

Don't read many bounces, eh?  Bounce messages *normally* contain the
complete output from the last command sent for a recipient on the most
recent delivery attempt.  That is, if the delivery attempt failed (or
was delayed past the delay timeout) by a 4xy or 5xy response to the
MAIL FROM, the complete text of that response will be included in the
bounce message.  Ditto for RCPT TO, and I would expect the same of
HELO/EHLO.

For example, here's the text/plain part from the top of a random
joe-job bounce spam from my quarantine...

----
The original message was received at Mon, 19 Feb 2007 06:04:48 -0600
from XXX.YYY.com [##.##.##.##]

  ----- The following addresses had permanent fatal errors -----
550 User account is over quota.  Mailbox full.
   (reason: 550 5.1.1 User unknown)
   (expanded from: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>)

  ----- Transcript of session follows -----
550 5.1.1 550 User account is over quota.  Mailbox full.... User unknown

----

That sure looks like a response from a RCPT TO command to me.

I vaguely recall seeing the text of the *successful* commands before a
failed RCPT on occasion too, though I may be confusing that with how
MH handled failed submission attempts...


Philip Guenther

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