[Dovecot] Some questions about deliver

[Axel Luttgens]

Le 28 mai 09 à 23:51, Timo Sirainen a écrit :

> On Tue, 2009-05-26 at 14:35 +0200, Axel Luttgens wrote:
>> [...]
>
> That looks like a server configuration mistake.

No, it's just a Postfix system quickly and dirtily brought to life for  
the sole purpose of testing deliver from within a MTA. ;-)

On that occasion, I just took Postfix' default behaviors for  
illustrative purposes. But it could have been Sendmail, qmail, Exim...  
as well, or even a very esoteric homegrown system: any of those  
systems, especially the already operational and fine-tuned ones, have  
precise expectations on how their native LDA behaves.

Replacing that LDA by another one is thus something far from benign  
and to be done with care, if possible with the help of as much info as  
possible about how the new LDA will behave.
Hence my investigations, then my dumb questions about deliver: how  
does it behave, is that behavior configurable and if yes to what  
extent, have I missed something in the docs or in the source code, and  
so on.


> [...]
>
>> At least, it would be nice to have a very precise description of how
>> deliver is supposed to behave when facing various conditions.
>> This would then be a documentation matter.
>
> Maybe.. Although it can be summarized pretty easily:
>
> - Invalid command line parameter gives EX_USAGE
> - Invalid configuration gives EX_CONFIG
> - User-over-quota optionally bounces or exits with EX_NOPERM

with a mention about the -e option and the quota_full_tempfail setting


> - Anything else is EX_TEMPFAIL.

Fine!

I really believe that it would be worth to engrave that behavior  
somewhere in the docs.
This could prove extremely useful to people considering to replace  
their existing LDA in their existing setup, by making explicit some  
points to take care of.
As a side-effect, this might also act as a reminder of the behaviors  
that should not be altered in case of code rewriting.
Last but not least, no more irritating questions. ;-)

Thanks a lot,
Axel