[LUNI] OT: comcast problem

[Martin Maney]

On Sat, Apr 14, 2007 at 04:48:28PM -0500, Carey Tyler Schug wrote:
> Comcast does not recognize the following email address (this is a vanity 
> email address, forwarded to some other address, possibly sbcglobal)
> 
> lyn at mindfullivingcoach.com

The wonderful thing about the best protocols is that they're just text,
so you can find out what's going on...

maney at furrr:~$ telnet mindfullivingcoach.com smtp
Trying 209.124.84.34...
Connected to mindfullivingcoach.com.
Escape character is '^]'.
220-fs3057.dragon.com ESMTP Exim 4.63 #1 Sat, 14 Apr 2007 22:01:20 -0400
220-We do not authorize the use of this system to transport unsolicited,
220 and/or bulk e-mail.
HELO two14.net
250 fs3057.dragon.com Hello two14.net
MAIL FROM:maney at two14.net
250 OK
RCPT TO:lyn at mindfullivingcoach.com
451 Could not complete sender verify callout
quit

Looking in my SMTP logs, I found (unsurpringly) that the destination
SMTP had tried to verify the sender address; it failed in this case
because my frontend SMTP runs a greylist filter, so their attempt got a
450 from it, hence failed.  Presumably if this had been a real email
the verify would have succeeded on a later retry... but if the sending
MTA didn't bother to retry (as the RFC calls for but, so I've heard,
some busy sites don't [always] do) the mail would, of course, never get
delivered.  Or there might just be a glitch in the attempted verify
step that's failing for some other reason.  Of course if that's all
there were to it you chould be seeing a bounce for these failures...

-- 
If nature has made any one thing less susceptible than all others of
exclusive property, it is the action of the thinking power called an
idea, which an individual may exclusively possess as long as he keeps
it to himself; but the moment it is divulged, it forces itself into
the possession of every one, and the receiver cannot dispossess
himself of it.  -- Thomas Jefferson