[Mimedefang] Greylisting and Primus

[Todd Aiken]

Just wondering if anybody else on this list has had problems with
Greylisting and people being unable to mail them from the Primus ISP?
I've had a couple of users having mail bouncing trying to mail our
domain, and I've traced it to the fact that Primus seems to treat 400
series SMTP error codes as permanent failures and they don't seem to
requeue their mail.  I even sent a detailed letter to their tech support
describing the problem and asked them to fix it, but that was a month
ago and I haven't heard anything since (not surprising-nobody likes to
be told their system is not configured correctly and needs to be fixed).

Here is a copy of a delivery failure from a Primus client:

--------

The following address(es) failed:

  helpdesk at ubishops.ca
    SMTP error from remote mailer after RCPT TO:<helpdesk at ubishops.ca>:
    host Hera.ubishops.ca [192.197.190.2]: 451 4.3.0 We will accept the
mail in 10 minutes and 0 seconds.:
    retry timeout exceeded

--------

Our mail server shows the following associated log entries:

--------

Aug 24 15:23:56 JUNO mimedefang.pl[29825]:
MDLOG,j7OJNpDV031066,grey_new,600,216.254.136.21,lallen at ican.net,helpdes
k at ubishops.ca,? 
Aug 24 15:23:56 JUNO sm-mta[31066]: j7OJNpDV031066: We will accept the
mail in 10 minutes and 0 seconds.
Aug 24 15:23:56 JUNO sm-mta[31066]: j7OJNpDV031066:
from=<lallen at ican.net>, size=2832, class=0, nrcpts=0, proto=ESMTP,
daemon=MTA, relay=mail.tor.primus.ca [216.254.136.21]

--------

Obviously, if a user sends a second message after the initial 10 minutes
it will go through, and I could also configure MIMEDefang to bypass
greylisting for the Primus domain, but why should I modify my system
just because they refuse to adhere to SMTP standards?


CU L8R...

Todd A. Aiken
Systems Analyst - Administrator
ITS Department
BISHOP'S UNIVERSITY
Lennoxville, Quebec, CANADA

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