What happens to email sent to a server that is down?

Freeway
1

This might seem a simple question, but I was wondering what happens to any email that is sent to a server whilst is down.

Does the email eventually get delivered?

Or does it get sent back as undelivered?

I was just wondering because Have-Host were down again just now and I am expecting some work to come through.

Thanks

Steve

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2

It will “back up” and re-attempt to deliver the mail later. Eventually it will give up though.

David Owen { Freeway Friendly Web hosting and Domains }

http://www.ineedwebhosting.co.uk | http://www.PrintlineAdvertising.co.uk

On 11 Nov 2013, at 10:05, SteveB email@hidden wrote:

This might seem a simple question, but I was wondering what happens to any email that is sent to a server whilst is down.

Does the email eventually get delivered?

Or does it get sent back as undelivered?

I was just wondering because Have-Host were down again just now and I am expecting some work to come through.

Thanks

Steve

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3

Hi David,

I thought that it would get through eventually when the server came back on line.

Good to have it confirmed though.

Thanks,

Steve.

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4

At 10:33 +0000 11/11/13, David Owen wrote:

It will “back up” and re-attempt to deliver the mail later.
Eventually it will give up though.

The ‘give up’ time should be in days. I’ve not seen it less than 5 days.

David

–
David Ledger - Freelance Unix Sysadmin in the UK.
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www.ivdcs.co.uk

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