How are Your SMTP Timeouts Configured?

Asprin asks: "One of the employees at work had a major headache because a very important email was undeliverable for more than 24 hours. Sure, he got an warning from our server about it, but only after an entire day had passed, and the email was no longer timely. Therefore, I shorted the message handling timeouts to send 'delivery delayed' warnings after 30 minutes and to cancel the message as undeliverable after four hours. Now, I don't expect any of the other mail administrators here to bless these timeouts because they're way too short. HOWEVER, the truth is that my users rely on email to be as reliable as telephone messages, and if it can't be delivered immediately, it is better to reject it outright and alert the user so that other communication channels can be exploited such as fax or Fed-Ex. Is anyone else doing this? Are there any non-obvious ramifications lurking? Pros? Cons? Comments? Should we all reduce these timeouts on our SMTP servers?"

Comments

Up here in the great white north

[the_other_one]

We use dogsleds.
If the dogs come back wanting food without the sled.
Then the driver was eaten by a bear and the
message did not get through and the sled
sunk below the ice.
Resend Message
else If The dogs come back with the sled but
without the driver and w/o reply
Then the driver was eaten by a bear and the
the dogs were hungry so they came home.
Resend Message
else If The dogs come back with the sled and
the reply but without the driver.
Then the team made it to the destination
got the reply but the driver was eaten
by a bear on the way home. However,
the dogs were hungry so they returned.
else If the driver returns with the team and
the reply.
Then the reply is a fake. The driver hung out
at the brothel down the road for a few
weeks and faked the reply.
Resend message.