[wp-trac] [WordPress Trac] #62129: Add a Site Health test for existence of sender email address

[WordPress Trac]

#62129: Add a Site Health test for existence of sender email address
-------------------------------------------+------------------------------
 Reporter:  knutsp                         |       Owner:  (none)
     Type:  enhancement                    |      Status:  new
 Priority:  normal                         |   Milestone:  Awaiting Review
Component:  Site Health                    |     Version:
 Severity:  normal                         |  Resolution:
 Keywords:  needs-copy-review 2nd-opinion  |     Focuses:  administration
-------------------------------------------+------------------------------

Comment (by SirLouen):

 I'm going to recap the latest comments regarding this topic:

 These were the concerns of @michael.orlitzky

 > You're bypassing the MTA's configuration... what if it uses a relay host
 and the web server is blacklisted?
 > You have to pick a HELO name that both passes SPF and is valid for the
 web server.
 > What do you do if there's a temporary DNS error?
 > What do you do if you manage to connect but the connection is dropped?
 > What do you do if everything goes OK, but at the very end, the server
 sends you a 4xx mailbox full?

 And these are the answeres from @knutsp

 > > You're bypassing the MTA's configuration... what if it uses a relay
 host and the web server is blacklisted?
 >Fail.

 > > You have to pick a HELO name that both passes SPF and is valid for the
 web server.
 > Fail.

 > > What do you do if there's a temporary DNS error?
 > Temporarily undetermined result.

 > > What do you do if you manage to connect but the connection is dropped?
 > Temporarily incolclusive result.

 > > What do you do if everything goes OK, but at the very end, the server
 sends you a 4xx mailbox full?
 > Success. Not relevant.

 > In my view, the only problem WordPress should care about is that the
 From address should exist, whatever it's configured to be. The fact that
 this may not be reliably checked doesn't make it unusable.

 This said:

 1. Having inconclusive or failed reports within the Health Check is not
 alien. This happens a lot with checks like the Cron results.
 2. As @knutsp suggested, the idea is just to check if the address is valid
 in the simplest way. We could even expand the message by some code to
 check if it has been changed and good to go. `RCPT TO` could definitely do
 the trick (VRFY is disabled by most servers, so I would not care about
 it). Also some servers send a 200 to `RCPT TO` regardless of the fact that
 the mailbox exists or not, delivering a false positive, which is the worst
 case scenario.

 == This can be documented like

 === Mailbox Test Results

 Case success:
 > The destination server accepted our probe to the email
 `wordpress at localhost`. But this is not a guarantee that the address exists
 so we recommend sending a real email to this email address and manually
 confirming that you are receiving it.

 Case failure:
 > The destination server refused our probe to the email
 `wordpress at localhost`. Some providers intentionally block these probes, so
 we recommend sending a real email to this email address and manually
 confirming that you are receiving it.

 And many other checks can take place to display a full message of what can
 be going on. For example, we could be checking if the email was already
 changed or not via filter hook. If it was never changed, we could add
 something like:

 > Be aware that by default, WordPress sends emails from
 `wordpress at localhost`. This can sometimes cause delivery issues or make
 emails appear less professional.
 > To customize the sender email, we recommend installing a dedicated
 plugin or adding the filter hook `wp_mail_from`
 > Learn more about Mailing in WordPress.(opens in a new tab)

 If it was manually changed, we could simply dismiss all these tests , and
 return a full valid check like

 > We can confirm that you have modified the From address via hook filter.
 No further checks will be done in this scenario as we expect you are in
 control of the situation.

 Currently we are discussing about the structure of the test and the copy.
 Be free to add anything that could be worth mentioning.

-- 
Ticket URL: <https://core.trac.wordpress.org/ticket/62129#comment:5>
WordPress Trac <https://core.trac.wordpress.org/>
WordPress publishing platform