Re: [ietf-smtp] [Emailcore] Proposed ESMTP keyword RCPTLIMIT

Sam Varshavchik <mrsam@courier-mta.com> Tue, 20 April 2021 00:09 UTC

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From: Sam Varshavchik <mrsam@courier-mta.com>
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Date: Mon, 19 Apr 2021 20:09:23 -0400
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Subject: Re: [ietf-smtp] [Emailcore] Proposed ESMTP keyword RCPTLIMIT
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George Schlossnagle writes:


> The common limits we see in the real world (in order of most common  
> occurrence/impact) are:
>
>
> Messages per connection
> Recipients per message
> Simultaneous connections per sending IP (this would be my number one  
> suggested add)

This is surprising: that messages per connection is more commonly checked  
than everything else.

I would expect that a receiving server would prefer reusing the same  
connection, to send consecutive messages, than have the sender establish a  
connection, send one message, then tear it down.

A long time ago that was Qmail's well-known bad rep: its simplistic  
implementation, how it created a connection for every individual message.  
So, a dozen messages to the same domain resulted in dozens of concurrent  
connections, all to send one message and disconnect.

I see nothing to gain from forcing a sending server to artificially limit  
itself; how after every N sent messages it has to close its socket, and  
reconnect again. What is that supposed to accomplish? I don't get it.