Defer email via LMTP when there is 'no space left on device' instead of rejecting it

[Christian Rohmann]

On 22.07.2014 19:00, Moritz Augsburger wrote:
> The message could be already saved to disk by the MTA, so I don't see a
> reason for a hard reject, if it could be fixed within some hours by the
> admin (eg by expanding the volume, moving mailboxes between multiple
> storage systems etc).
> 
> Mails aren't instant, and as long as the MTA handles it properly with a
> reject after some failed delivery attempts I see no problem making it at
> least configurable.

My point exactly. The message was accepted from the MTA already, but
simply could not be delivered into the mailbox. This is a rare case yes,
and yes, disk space has to be monitored. But this is not the point. The
point is, what happens when it happens anyways, against all odds.

Bounced / rejected messages for something that will be usually be
resolved very quickly and the messages can then be delivered after all
is just not very nice for users. The admin made a mistake and the users
have to deal with the problems is just not my approach.

But in the end I don't even want to argue that rejecting the messages
might not be a valid behavior for some. That's why I suggested to make
this configurable, just like the quota behavior.


Regards

Christian