JP2001144799A - Electronic mail system - Google Patents

Abstract

PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To provide a method for confirming a distribution state and reducing the traffic of a communication network when a mail is re-transmitted to an E-mail address where a distribution was impossible once by providing a distribution impossible report information list. SOLUTION: A distribution impossible report mail received from a communication network 11, etc., is analyzed 8 and stored in the distribution impossible report information list 9. It is retrieved whether the E-mail address is the address where the distribution was impossible once on the basis of the list 9 when the mail is transmitted. When the address exists in the list, a distribution impossible report is generated without distributing the transmission mail to the communication network and the distribution impossible report is distributed to a transmitter.

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a method for delivering mail via a communication network or the like and an electronic mail system for the method.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art A conventional electronic mail system is disclosed in
As described in JP-A-316144, a mail ID is added to an outgoing mail, a copy is held, and the mail is distributed to a destination node. Here, when the delivery was not possible, a delivery failure notification (error mail) was generated and returned to the sender. In addition, the copied outgoing mail and the mail ID of the delivery failure notification
Is matched, the transmitted mail is added to the non-delivery notification and distributed to the sender.

[0003]

According to the above-mentioned prior art, it is impossible to determine whether or not a destination that cannot be delivered is undeliverable without performing mail transmission processing to a communication network or the like. In addition, it takes time to receive the delivery failure notification. In addition, since the content of the mail that could not be delivered is added to the delivery failure notification and delivered to the sender, if the size of the sent mail is large, the delivery failure notification increases and the load on the communication network and the like increases. was there.

[0004] It is an object of the present invention to generate a non-delivery notice and send it back to the sender by storing the non-delivery notice information in a non-delivery notice information list without distributing the mail to a destination that has become undeliverable once. Therefore, it is possible to improve the response performance of the delivery failure notification and reduce the traffic to the communication network.

Another object of the present invention is to make it possible to improve the mail delivery service of the entire electronic mail system.

[0006]

In order to achieve the above object, non-delivery information is stored on an electronic mail system for transmitting and receiving mail via a communication network or the like based on non-delivery notification mail. A notification information list is provided and held. This means that the next time the mail is delivered, the delivery failure notification information list is searched, and if an attempt is made to send the mail to the same destination, the delivery failure notification is generated and returned to the sender without delivering the mail to a communication network or the like. It is.

[0007] In addition, the delivery impossible information after a certain period of time,
Discard from the non-delivery notification information list and return to the initial state. In addition, it is possible to forcibly discard the contents of the non-delivery notification information list and set it to an initial state by a user operation. As a result, no malfunction occurs even when the undelivery state is restored.

[0008]

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS An embodiment of the present invention will be described below with reference to FIG. First, FIG. 1 shows a configuration of an electronic mail system 1 of the present invention. In this embodiment, when mail is received from the communication network 11 or the like, the communication network 1
The distribution processing unit 5 of the communication unit receives the mail from the communication unit 1, and the reception processing unit 7 detects the sender / receiver address, converts the mail format and the character code, and distributes the mail to the non-delivery notice detection unit 8. The delivery failure notification detection unit 8 determines whether or not the received mail is a delivery failure notification. If it is determined that the notification is a delivery failure notification due to some problem on the delivery, the delivery failure notification is analyzed, and the E-Mail address at which delivery is disabled,
The SMTP error code, the comment, the reception time, and the like are accumulated in the distribution failure notification information list 9 and distributed to the distribution failure notification generation unit 10.

The non-delivery notification generation unit 10 generates a non-delivery notification based on the non-delivery notification information record, and distributes unnecessary data to the recipient address without adding the unnecessary data to the non-delivery notification. When sending a mail from the sender 4 to the receiver 3, the sending host 2 relays the mail created by the sender 4. The sending host 2 checks the sender / receiver address of the mail received from the sender 4 by the sending processing unit 6, converts the mail format and the character code, and generates a sent mail. At this time, the sender address is compared with the E-Mail address stored in the delivery failure notification information list 9. As a result of the comparison, when the same E-Mail address is detected, the delivery failure notification information record 15 is delivered to the delivery failure notification generation unit 10. The non-delivery notification generation unit 10 generates a non-delivery notification based on the non-delivery notification information record and distributes it to the sender 4.

FIG. 2 illustrates the distribution impossible notification information list shown in FIG. The non-delivery notification information list is a table generated based on the non-delivery notification mail, and there is one record for each undeliverable E-Mail address. When the non-delivery notification mail is received, the following elements are stored in the non-delivery notification information list as the non-delivery notification information record 15 from the non-delivery notification mail.

[0011] Undeliverable E-Mail address 11 SMTP response code 12 Delivery time of non-delivery notification mail 13 Non-delivery message 14 This list of non-delivery notification information is distributed within the time set by the past user when the mail is distributed. The purpose is to determine whether or not it was impossible.

Although not shown in the table, other elements can be added to the elements of each delivery failure notification information record.

FIG. 3 is a flowchart for explaining in detail the operation at the time of receiving a mail. The received mail is analyzed (S101), and it is determined whether the received mail is a non-delivery notification mail (S102). If the received mail is not the delivery failure notification mail, the mail is delivered to the recipient (S105). In the case of the non-delivery notification mail, the delivery is impossible from the non-delivery notification mail.
The mail address, SMTP response code, non-delivery message and non-delivery notification mail reception time are analyzed (S1).
03). Next, the undeliverable E-Mail address is
Non-delivery notification information record 15 of non-delivery notification information list
The E-Mail address 11 is searched for (S104).
As a result of the search (S106), if the same E-Mail address exists, the same non-delivery notification information record 1
5, the SMTP response code 12 and the comment 14 are updated (S108). If the same E-Mail address does not exist, the E-Mail address 11, the SMTP response code 12, the comment 14, and the non-delivery notification mail reception time 13 are added to the non-delivery notification information list as the non-delivery notification information record 15 (S107). ). Next, a delivery failure notification is generated based on the delivery failure notification information record (S109).
As a result, the non-delivery notification is distributed to the recipient without adding unnecessary data to the non-delivery notification (S110).

FIG. 4 is a flow chart for explaining the operation at the time of mail transmission in detail. The recipient address of the mail to be transmitted is analyzed (S201). Then, the E-Ma of the non-delivery notification information record 15 of the non-delivery notification information list
The il address 11 is searched (S202). As a result of the search (S203), if the same E-Mail address does not exist, the mail is delivered to the recipient (S205). If the same E-Mail address exists, the reception time 1
It is determined whether the predetermined time specified by the user has passed since 3 (S204). If the predetermined time has elapsed, the delivery failure notification information record 15 in the delivery failure notification information list is discarded (S208), and the mail is delivered to the recipient (S20).
9). If the fixed time has not elapsed, a non-delivery notification is generated based on the non-delivery notification information record (S206).
The delivery failure notification is delivered to the recipient (S207).

FIG. 5 is a flow chart for explaining the operation for setting the distribution impossible notification information record on the distribution impossible notification information list to the initial state. When the initialization instruction is received from the user, the non-delivery notification information list is read (S30).
1), the presence of a delivery failure notification information record is determined (S)
302). If a non-delivery notification information record exists,
Discard all non-delivery notification information records (S30)
3) Then, return to the initial state.

If there is no non-delivery notification information record, the non-delivery notification information list is determined to be in the initial state.

[0017]

According to the present invention, by distributing non-delivery information in a non-delivery notification mail received from a communication network or the like, mail is delivered from the stored non-delivery information to the same sender when transmitting the mail. In this case, since the delivery non-delivery notification is generated without delivering the mail to the communication network, traffic related to the communication network and communication with the communication network can be reduced. Also,
Since the non-delivery notification is generated from the essential elements, the data amount of the non-delivery notification can be reduced, and the data amount to the actual mail sender can be reduced.

The delivery failure notification information record stored on the delivery failure notification information list can be set by the user to set the storage time and forcedly initialized. A possible effect is achieved.

[Brief description of the drawings]

FIG. 1 is an overall configuration diagram of an electronic mail system according to the present invention.

FIG. 2 is a diagram illustrating contents stored in a delivery failure notification file shown in FIG. 1;

FIG. 3 is a flowchart illustrating an operation at the time of mail reception according to the embodiment of the present invention in detail.

FIG. 4 is a flowchart illustrating an operation at the time of mail transmission according to the embodiment of the present invention in detail.

FIG. 5 is a flowchart illustrating an operation of setting a delivery failure notification information record on a delivery failure notification information list to an initial state according to the embodiment of the present invention.

[Explanation of symbols]

DESCRIPTION OF SYMBOLS 1 ... E-mail system, 2 ... Transmission host, 3 ... Reception host, 4 ... Actual transmission host, 5 ... Distribution processing part, 6 ... Transmission processing part, 7 ... Reception processing part, 8 ... Distribution non-delivery notification detection part,
9: delivery failure notification information list, 10: delivery failure notification generation unit.

 ──────────────────────────────────────────────────続 き Continuing from the front page (72) Inventor Dai Sato 5030 Totsuka-cho, Totsuka-ku, Yokohama-shi, Kanagawa Prefecture F-term in the Software Division, Hitachi, Ltd. 5B089 GA11 GA21 GB04 HA10 JA31 JB22 KA07 KB06 5K030 HA06 KA02 9A001 BB03 BB04 CC07 FF03 JJ14 KK56

Claims (5)

[Claims] 1. A means for accumulating in a non-delivery notification information list based on a non-delivery notification mail when the mail transmission is undeliverable when the mail is transmitted via a communication network or the like; At the time, the delivery status is confirmed based on the delivery failure notification information list, and in the case of the delivery failure status, there is provided a function that recognizes that the delivery is not possible in the sending host without transmitting to the communication network. It is an electronic mail system characterized by the following. 2. The electronic mail system according to claim 1, further comprising means for accumulating, in a non-delivery notification information list, a transmission domain, a sender address, an SMTP response code, and non-delivery message information from the received non-delivery notification mail. A method characterized by the following. 3. A method comprising generating a non-delivery notification based on the non-delivery notification information stored according to claim 2, thereby reducing a data amount of the non-delivery notification. 4. The method according to claim 2, wherein the time period during which the non-delivery notification information list stored according to claim 2 is retained includes means that can be set by a user. 5. The method according to claim 2, wherein the non-delivery notification information list stored according to claim 2 includes means that can be initialized by user setting.