On 05/10/12 10:40, Chris Green wrote:
As per the subject line, do most SMTP servers (as in systems 'out there' which send me mail) behave reasonably sensibly when my SMTP server is temporarily not functioning?
A sensible mail server will behave sensibly, others may not. The mail server I use has a set of preset retry intervals, which work something like this, multiple retries, each retry after a larger time interval, until it expires and is bounced back to the sender - e.g.
Send, retry after 5 mins, 10 mins, 30 mins, 1 hour, 2 hours, 4 hours, 8 hours, 1 day, 2 days, quit. Other mail servers may behave differently, depending on the implementation of the mail server, and the configuration the user may have done. Not all servers will behave the same way.
So if you're relying on other mail servers' behaviour, then when/if you receive your email would depend on if your machine's availability coincided with a retry by the server trying to talk to you.
I wouldn't go down that route - either have a mail server to receive the mail and have it on all the time, or get someone else to handle your mail for you. Your ISP could do it, or Google can do it for you.
If you have someone else doing the mail for you (e.g. Google), you don't have to use webmail, you can probably access the mail from their servers IMAP, or still have a mail server storing the mail locally (but not recieving it via SMTP), and instead use something like FetchMail to fetch your mail from the ISP/Google's mail server when your machine is switched on. Or just do the old thing of host the email at the ISP, then fetch it with an email client (which stores your email) via POP3.
HTH Steve