From: Patrik Rak <patrik@ein.cz>
Subject: exim: The retry rules vs. dial up connection.
To: submit@bugs.debian.org
Message-Id: <E10v1kI-0000Rs-00@eagle.int.ein.cz>
Date: Fri, 18 Jun 1999 18:44:02 +0200

Package: exim
Version: 2.11-4
Severity: wishlist

Hi!

The retry logic of exim (at least the one caused by eximconfig retry rule)
is not very well designed for people who connect to the Internet only occasionally.

For example, assume I write an email to someone and I don't mind if it stays
in the queue until I use my dial up next time. If I forget to call for some
time, I get the warning messages and then finally the mail is returned.
OK, that's not the problem. The real problem is caused by the following exim
behavior (quoted from oview.txt):

	When the maximum time for retrying has passed,
	pending addresses are failed.  However, a next try
	time is still computed from the final subrule.
	Until that time is reached, any new messages for
	the address are immediately failed.  When the next
	try time is passed, one further delivery attempt is
	made; if this fails, a new next try time is
	computed, and so on.

You see? This means that once I get the mail bounced, all mail for that
address is bounced immediately. And as I use dial up only when necessary
(i.e., not on "computer's" demand), the chance that my computer will be able
to connect during the next cycle (8 hours in default config) is almost zero.
So, the only way out of this is to delete the retry database, which is not
very comfortable for casual user, is it?

Note that this is not a theoretical example, it has really happened.

May be the author should consider implementing some way of disabling this
feature in the retry rule.

Patrik

P.S. Maybe this is the reason for events described in #38723 too.


-- System Information
Debian Release: potato
Kernel Version: Linux eagle 2.0.36 #3 Mon Mar 22 10:52:34 CET 1999 i586 unknown

Versions of the packages exim depends on:
ii  cron            3.0pl1-51      management of regular background processing
ii  libc6           2.1.1-12       GNU C Library: Shared libraries and timezone
ii  libident        0.22-1         simple RFC1413 client library - runtime
ii  libpcre2        2.05-1         Philip Hazel's Perl Compatible Regular Expre

--- Begin /etc/ppp/ip-up.d/exim (modified conffile)
Config file not present or no permissions for access

--- End /etc/ppp/ip-up.d/exim