SMAILRTRY(5) Local SMAILRTRY(5)NAME
/etc/smail/retry - smail retry configuration
THE RETRY FILE
This section details the format and use of the retry control file.
The retry file defines, by target domain, the minimum interval between
delivery attempts and/or the maximum duration over which to continue
attempting delivery.
Each retry entry should have the form:
destination[:destination...] [interval]/[duration]
stating that, for the given destinations(s), delivery will be attempted
no more frequently than interval, and that delivery attempts will cease
after duration.
The destination is the name that is used for the host retry file which
serves both the purpose of preventing Smail from opening more than one
simultaneous operation for a given destination and which; and the pur‐
pose of recording the reason why a delivery to a given destination
failed and when that failure occurred. For all transports except those
using the tcpsmtp driver the destination can be either a simple host‐
name, a fully qualified domain name, or just the proper suffix of a
domain name. When Smail is compiled with HAVE_BIND the destinations
for transports using the tcpsmtp driver must be specified as an
explicit IP address in the format identical to what is generated by
inet_ntoa(3) since the host retry lock filenames are the ASCII repre‐
sentations of the IP address being used for the target SMTP server
host. This is done so that target hostnames resolving to multiple
addresses won't block all addresses should deliveries to just one of
those addresses fail.
When given as a domain name a leading dot (`.') is ignored but you can
use it to document when you really mean a domain suffix in a way simi‐
lar to the pathalias router driver.
Values for interval and duration are in seconds if no units suffix is
given. However, they can be written as a sequence of numbers with suf‐
fixes of `s' for seconds, `m' for minutes, `h' for hours, `d' for days,
`w' for weeks and `y' for years. For example, ``10m/2d'' specifies an
interval of ten minutes and a duration of two days; and
``1h10m30s/1w3d12h'' would represent an interval of one hour, ten min‐
utes and 30 seconds and a duration of exactly one and one half weeks.
Invalid specifications (attempts to set a negative number, use of
invalid units suffixes, etc.) will be logged as configuration errors.
Take care not to use a setting that can not be represented internally
as a number of seconds greater than the maximum value of an unsigned C
integer.
Explicitly setting the interval to zero (``0'') will cause it to always
be treated as twice whatever is given as the queue run interval with
the ``-q'' parameter. This will prevent messages to one or more
domains with many dead/broken MX targets from blocking the queue with
every queue run attempt and will allow other messages in the queue to
be processed more quickly. In extreme circumstances this may help
avoid accumulating too many queue run processes that are doing nothing
useful.
If the duration is set to zero then any message in the queue will only
be retried once more before being bounced (i.e. a delivery attempt is
made for every message in the queue before it is bounced even if the
duration has long since expired or is set to zero).
Either or both of interval and duration may be omitted, in which case
they are taken to be the default value specified with the respective
global configuration parameter, either retry_interval or retry_dura‐
tion. Note that the ``/'' separator must be present.
As a special case, if a retry file entry has a domain list equal to the
special string ``*'', that entry matches any domain. This feature is a
catch-all which should only be used in the last entry in a retry file.
If a retry file contains no ``*'' catch-all entry, then the configura‐
tion parameters retry_interval and retry_duration will be used to con‐
trol retries to domains without specific retry entries.
FILES
/etc/smail/retry - smail retry configuration
SEE ALSOinet_ntoa(X_MAN3_EXT_X), smailconf(5), smaildrct(5), smailqual(5),
smailrtrs(5), smailtrns(5), smail(8).
Smail Administration and Installation Guide.
DARPA Internet Requests for Comments: RFC 821, RFC 822, RFC 974, RFC
976, and RFC 1123.
BUGS
Database files cannot contain ``#'' in the left-hand field.
COPYRIGHT
Copyright (C) 1987, 1988 Ronald S. Karr and Landon Curt Noll
Copyright (C) 1992 Ronald S. Karr
See a file COPYING, distributed with the source code, or type smail
-bc, to view distribution rights and restrictions associated with this
software.
Smail-3 RELEASE-3_2_0_115 SMAILRTRY(5)