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SMTP retrys on failure -- General Question about rfc.



We lost our network connection recently for about an hour and 
I was going to explain to someone how mail servers work when
it came apparent that I did not know the exact retry rate that 
other MTA servers use.

So, I have been looking for information on mail server (MTA) retries. There 
does not seem to be any standard except 5 days seems to be the max. Am I 
right here ?

Does anyone know if there is an RFC for mail servers regarding 
mail retries ? 

I found this but it does not explain the details:
http://www.faqs.org/rfcs/rfc1894.html

What is the typical retry rate for most mail servers out there ?

I.E. MS Exchange, 
	Sendmail,
	Etc.

I use the Postfix MTA, mine seems to say 'try to resend every 1000
seconds for 5 days':

postconf | grep -i queue

maximal_queue_lifetime = 5d
queue_run_delay = 1000s

Here is a [Random] Exim Config which specifies the MTA a retry rate
diffently: 

# begin retry
# Domain               Error       Retries
*                      *           F,2h,15m; G,16h,2h,1.5; F,4d,8h

# This single retry rule applies to all domains and all errors. It
# specifies retries every 15 minutes for 2 hours, then increasing retry
# intervals starting at 2 hours and increasing each time by a factor of 1.5, up to
# 16 hours, then retries every 8 hours until 4 days have passed since
# the first

-- 
------------------------------------------
Ted Knab
Chester, MD 21619

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11100110010011101000011000101110111101100100111010011110
00000100001101101001011001100110101001100110011011110110
01001110101101100000010011101110100101100010111000010110
00000100100001100000010000101110010011101111011000001110
10010110110011101011011000000100011001101111011001001110
00000100110001101111011010110110000011101010111000101110
1010011001001110110011100111010001010000



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