[nzlug] (OT) Sorbs etc, was Exim: Limiting outgoing connections on Debian

[Cliff Pratt]

Simon Lyall wrote:
> On Sat, 7 Oct 2006, Robin Sheat wrote:
>> On Friday 06 October 2006 16:51, Donald Gordon wrote:
>>> Greylisting is not terribly wonderful. ?It cuts down on some spam, but
>>> breaks an expectation that many users have: that their email is sent
>>> instantaneously. ?

>> There should be no expectation that mail is delivered instantly. The standard
>> is to get a notice that it hasn't been delivered after 5 days. Besides, the
>> delay only happens once, and is usually 5 minutes. You can't expect someone
>> you've never emailed before to respond to an email within 5 minutes anyway.
> 
> I don't know what planet you live on but where I live people are paid
> money to run mail systems and the expectation is that 99% of email should
> go though with 10 seconds or so and the is pretty much achieveable.
> 
Hmm. Not when the servers are in the US and seem to pass email back and 
forth for anything up to two hours! Not to mention proxies and virus 
scanners each added their quantum of delay.

The major problem with greylisting servers is that they all have 
different rules, it seems. Some expect a try in 10 minutes, some want 
two retries, one after five minutes and one after 15!

I phoned one admin of a server that we were having problems with and he 
just said to retry the email and it would eventually get through! The 
sender's view is that 'the mail server' is stuffing up and it is out 
fault! After all, sometimes it gets through and it therefore can't be 
the recipients end, could it? Bah! A plague on all greylisters!

Cheers,

Cliff