Recursive email bouncing
Feb. 14th, 2017 06:42 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
dr_whomI don't like the interface on the University of Toronto's webmail system, so I forward my U of T mail to another email account. Today that other server is down. Which is an inconvenience, but not too bad, since I can still receive my U of T email on the actual U of T email server; I don't like the interface, but it's there.
Except...
My U of T account forwards my email to the other server. The other server is down, so a failed-to-deliver message is generated and delivered to my U of T inbox. Which automatically tries to forward it to the other server, but fails because the server is down, which generates a failed-to-deliver message in my U of T inbox. Which is automatically forwarded to...
Fortunately this appears to top out after four iterations for some reason. But it still means every message to my U of T address today is causing me to receive itself plus four bounce notifications.
Except...
My U of T account forwards my email to the other server. The other server is down, so a failed-to-deliver message is generated and delivered to my U of T inbox. Which automatically tries to forward it to the other server, but fails because the server is down, which generates a failed-to-deliver message in my U of T inbox. Which is automatically forwarded to...
Fortunately this appears to top out after four iterations for some reason. But it still means every message to my U of T address today is causing me to receive itself plus four bounce notifications.
