"Error: message file too big" Is the limit on outgoing or receiving end?

Tralli picture Tralli · Feb 22, 2012 · Viewed 47.4k times · Source

A client is trying to send a rather large email but it gets bounced back with the following message:

Hi. This is the qmail-send program at server2.hysir.net.
I'm afraid I wasn't able to deliver your message to the following addresses.
This is a permanent error; I've given up. Sorry it didn't work out.

<[email protected]>:
157.157.98.19 failed after I sent the message.
Remote host said: 552 5.3.4 Error: message file too big

I've checked and there is no limit on outgoing mail size on our end and this ip address i.e 157.157.98.19 is the ip for the receiving mail server, am I right to assume the mail server for laeknastodin.is is denying the mail due to its size rather than our smtp refusing to send?

Answer

Gryphius picture Gryphius · Feb 22, 2012
Remote host said: 552 5.3.4 Error: message file too big

The error message clearly states that receiving host is limiting the message size. If you check with telnet you can see that the limit configured on the target host is 20 MB (20480000 bytes)

telnet 157.157.98.19 25
Trying 157.157.98.19...
Connected to 157.157.98.19.
Escape character is '^]'.
220 mail.laeknastodin.is ESMTP Postfix
EHLO example.com
250-mail.laeknastodin.is
250-PIPELINING
250-SIZE 20480000     <----------- 20 MB limit
250-VRFY
250-ETRN
250-STARTTLS
250-ENHANCEDSTATUSCODES
250-8BITMIME
250 DSN