RFC 1985 (rfc1985) - Page 3 of 7

SMTP Service Extension for Remote Message Queue Starting

RFC 1985             SMTP Service Extension - ETRN           August 1996


   single parameter, the name of the remote host(s) to start the queues
   for, the server can decide whether it wishes to respect the request
   or deny it for any local administrative reasons.

4.  Definitions

   Remote queue processing means that using an SMTP or ESMTP connection,
   the client may request that the server start to process parts of its
   messaging queue.  This processing is performed using the existing
   SMTP infrastructure and will occur at some point after the processing
   is initiated.

      The server host is the node that is responding to the ETRN
      command.

      The client host is the node that is initiating the ETRN command.

   The remote host name is defined to be a plain-text field that
   specifies a name for the remote host(s).  This remote host name may
   also include an alias for the specified remote host or special
   commands to identify other types of queues.

5.  The extended ETRN command

   The extended ETRN command is issued by the client host when it wishes
   to start the SMTP queue processing of a given server host.  The
   syntax of this command is as follows:

      ETRN []

   This command may be issued at any time once a session is established,
   as long as there is not a transaction occuring.  Thus, this command
   is illegal between a MAIL FROM: command and the end of the DATA
   commands and responses.

   The specified node name must be a fully qualified domain name for the
   node, which may refer to a CNAME or MX pointer in the DNS.  If an
   alias is used for the node, multiple ETRN commands may be needed to
   start the processing for the node as it may be listed at the remote
   site under multiple names.  This can also be addressed using the
   options discussed in section 5.3.

   The option character under normal circumstances is not used.








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