[Mimedefang] Re: On pinheaded ISP's (sort of OT)

[John Rudd]

WBrown at e1b.org wrote:
> Les wrote on 01/31/2007 03:52:58 PM:
> 
>> Is 'your' queue better than everyone else's?  Why not do a 4xx tmpfail 
>> if your address check temporarily fails?  Any real MTA should be 
>> prepared to queue and retry.
> 
> Why bother even having a backup MX if all it will do is return a 4xx?  Why 
> not let the sending server just fail to connect you your server and it 
> will retry just as long before failing.


low priority MX's server two purposes:


1) high availability

2) load distribution


Your complaint is that tempfailing negates #1.  It does not, however, 
negate #2.

Further, if your backup MX's are smart, instead of stupid, keeping some 
form of state about valid destination addresses, then #1 is not negated.

Personally, I'm not afraid of tempfailing.  Temporary delivery problems 
are what 4xx codes are for.