[simpits-tech] OT: Mail out of order

[Stig Joergensen]

Well Alex,
 
Thats not entirely accurate...
 
The way most systems works; when an outbound mail arrives at your local
smtp server (the outbound server), it will make an SMTP connection
directly to the server hosting the receiving address, according to the
MX (Mail eXchange) record priority of the domain in question, hence the
mail should be delivered almost right away.... You are right though, the
physical way the TCP packets are going might not be the same, but
chances are very high that it is the same route though - but anyway in
the examples i gave there was a time diff. of almost 15 min, and that
can only be because of 2 things; either genes mail server is bundling,
and keeping the mail for a period of time, in order to preserve
connections, or senders/receivers line to the ISP is faulty/overloaded
and a connection attempt failed and the server will have to retry again
after a given time - and i think thats the case here; Genes server is
having outbound connection problems - im 90% sure that if gene checks
the log on his server he will find a lot of failed connection attempts
 
Anyway, this is just to clarify a few things, sorry for the dragging of
the off topic
 
/Stig

-----Original Message-----
From: Wiebe, Alex [mailto:AWiebe@online-can.com]
Sent: 14. juni 2002 23:11
To: 'simpits-tech@simpits.org'
Subject: [simpits-tech] OT: Mail out of order



If you are not receiving this list in digest format, it is entirely
possible to receive messages out of order. This is OK and expected in
the email protocol. 2 messages from a given server to a given client are
not guaranteed to follow the same path, and hence, not guaranteed to
take the same amount of time. This is most apparent when multiple users
send questions / replies in quick succession.