Re: [ietf-smtp] parsing SMTP replies

[Laura Atkins <[e-mail]>]

> On 22 Mar 2021, at 01:16, Hector Santos <hsantos=[e-mail]> wrote:
> 
> On 3/17/2021 10:39 PM, Keith Moore wrote:
>> On 3/17/21 9:37 PM, Sam Varshavchik wrote:
>> 
>>> 
>>> I believe that the generally good track record of historical interoperability of SMTP implementations goes back to what's in section 4.5.3 of RFC 821, that gives the minimal limits of various things, like line lengths. And, incidentally, the minimum number of recipients that an SMTP server should accept is 100 recipients. 
>> 
>> It's been a long time but I'm pretty sure I've seen situations in which it made sense for the recipient limit to be 1.�� For example: a special-purpose device (e.g. email to fax, email to printer) or a gateway to a dissimilar mail system, or anything for which it makes sense to insist that per-recipient errors get immediately reported to the client.
>> 
> 
> Despite any standard, pseudo or otherwise, the ultimate limit is the local receiver/system and the minimum for a protocol complete SMTP transaction would be 1.
> 
> Our system has no limit out of the box and its system wide (global registry value). No current out of the box logic per user.  There might be a 3rd party RCPT command override p-code script (smtpcmd-rcpt.wcx) that may place a limit.  Can't a typical system handle 1000, 10K, 100K+ RCPTs?  How does a big list send mail 1 million subscribers?  

Most of the very big senders, the ones sending to hundreds or millions of people at a time, use VERP. Depending on what is known about the domain MXs they open a set of connections and send the mail. Most of the bulk mail is sent with one RCPT TO:. This is true for marketing mail but even more true for transactional mail. 

>  When our MLS is going thru a submission distribution, it has a transport to SMTP or create UUCP-ready files option.  The former method gets to learn from the SMTP receiver RCPT responses where a permanent 5yz result could  unsubscribe the user after a number of consecutive different message times.  Any permanent negative results with the intention of just being a limit could be interpreted as a user does no longer exist.

I may have agreed with you a decade ago. But that’s not true for modern bulk senders. Bounces are classified and sorted. We are long past the days where any permanent negative result is interpreted as a user no longer exists. (https://wordtothewise.com/2019/11/theres-something-about-bounces/) 

laura 

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