100950 - No failover when outgoing SMTP server has multiple DNS entries

Status: VERIFIED DUPLICATE of bug 86917

(MailNews Core :: Networking: SMTP, defect)

Description

[rcummins]

Suppose MailNews is configured with a single outgoing SMTP server of
mx.some.com.  mx.some.com's DNS has two 'address' entries: 10.1.1.1 and
10.1.1.2.  When MailNews resolves mx.some.com it receives these two IPs as
answers in a random order and tries to connect to the first in the list as an
outgoing SMTP server.  If it fails to connect to the first, *it does not try the
second in the list, it simply says "Sending of message failed"*.  NC 4.78 *does*
walk the returned list of IPs to try to find one that is listening for SMTP! 
(Collective gasp.)  Mozilla should do the same.  (I'm using Win32 build 2001092103)

This is *not* a duplicate of bug 52384 which deals with failing over to multiple
outgoing SMTP servers listed under "Advanced" on the "Outgoing server (SMTP)
Setting" preferences page.

Comment 1

[Matthias Versen [:Matti]]

dupe of bug 86917 ?

Comment 2

[rcummins]

Hmm, why didn't I think this would be found at a lower layer.  Yes, it appears 
to be a dup.

*** This bug has been marked as a duplicate of 86917 ***

Comment 3

[timeless]

vrfy dupe

Comment 4

[benc]

mscott: do you have a preference as to how this would work, or are you planning
on simply using whatever necko provides?

When you get more than one address and the first one fails, there are actually
several ways to deal with the problem. I haven't given much thought to how a
mail client would work best w/ this situation.