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Re: regarding illegally formed address and commands

Valdis.Kletnieks@vt.edu Wed, 25 December 1996 15:21 UTC

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From: Valdis.Kletnieks@vt.edu
To: Jack De Winter <jack@wildbear.on.ca>
Cc: ietf-smtp@list.cren.net
Subject: Re: regarding illegally formed address and commands
In-Reply-To: Your message of "Tue, 24 Dec 1996 20:34:38 EST." <3.0.32.19961224203437.00f150cc@lacroix>
References: <3.0.32.19961224203437.00f150cc@lacroix>
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On Tue, 24 Dec 1996 20:34:38 EST, "Jack De Winter" said:
> what the best response for an illegally formed RCPT is.  I would want
> to make it separate enough that it would stand out.
Well, from RFC821, section 4.2.1 (a whole table of replies
sorted by function code):

501 Syntax error in parameters or arguments

This seems to be a reasonable reply for a bad RCPT TO:.

Of course, Sendmail 8.8.4 gives a 250 at the initial connection - it
appears to do the syntax checking later.  I guess that works well for
the general case (as you don't slow down the mainline code with a
check), and only loses big time if the MAIL FROM: is also broken
so you can't generate a bounce.  But there are those who would claim
that such people deserve to lose until they fix their configs...

				Valdis Kletnieks
				Computer Systems Engineer
				Virginia Tech

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