On Fri, 04 Jan 2008 07:51:15 PST, Seth Mattinen said:
I'm having a bit of an argument with a customer over the command syntax in RFC 2821 that shows command arguments for MAIL/RCPT commands in brackets, i.e.:
Path = "<" [ A-d-l ":" ] Mailbox ">" Mailbox = Local-part "@" Domain
Our mail servers reject connections that don't follow the RFC. Am I wrong to do this? This guy certainly thinks so, even after I've cited
The best reason I've come up with for rejecting mail from software so totally brain-dead that they can't get the < > around an address right is this: If they botch this, they've probably botched a bunch of other stuff, and accepting mail from them is almost certain to lead to grief once you send the '250 OK' after DATA. If they couldn't get < > *around* the address in the MAIL FROM:, what makes you think the address is valid? Where does any ensuing bounce end up? And more importantly, can you find out what crapware is that brain-dead and let us know, so that those of us who believe in enforcing standards can shun it? :)