[mod.protocols.tcp-ip] duplicate message in SMTP

jordan@UCBARPA.BERKELEY.EDU.UUCP (02/24/87)

mark crispin,

i have seen this behaviour as well, but found it not on the UNIX side
(alas, sendmail has no routine sndmsg() ...), but on the side of a VMS
machine running some sort of SMTP (software tools?) that manages to
exceed sendmail's fondness for mangling headers ... and i agree that
once the message has been received, a 2xx acknowledgement is in order;
not quite sure why sendall() in sendmail comes before the 2xx ack.

/jordan

ron@BRL.ARPA.UUCP (02/25/87)

I that sndmsg (451 sndmsg balks!) was the BBN C70 UNIX mail system.

Jordan is right, neither sendmail or MMDF does this.  MMDF closes
the file it was writing the message into, queues the message, and
sends the return code.  It does not verify the message at that the
final dot point.  It just makes sure it has stored the message so that
subsequent failures can make use of the return path to send the
failed mail messages.

-Ron