I'm list admin/moderator of a 450+ member list that ran into trouble yesterday.
First, we're running Mailman 2.1.8 on a current release of OpenBSD. And it's
been running for 2+ years with no issues, until this past Friday morning when
the user db became corrupt.
Content filtering is set to remove all attachments and graphics, and we'd
determined that more than 15 CCs would hold an inbound post to moderate. No
message of more than 60 kb will be accepted.
On Wednesday, a member submitted a large email with poor formatting to the
list. And it had enough CCs attached to it that it caused a buffer overflow,
which resulted in the message being self-approved for the list. Suddenly the
server began repeating itself as it tried to process this huge message over and
over again. It became a vicious cycle - as the one message finally repeated
out, other messages that were caught in the queue became ammunition for the
server to repeat. Prior to the system crash, more than 6100 duplicate messages
were sent to 450 members, at an estimated peak rate of about 20,000 outbound
messages per half hour.
The user db became corrupt, and my server admin and I have worked to get things
operational again. At this point, the list is supposedly behaving itself, yet
no messages are actually being sent from the server. I don't have access to the
raw logs, but here is the snippet of discussion about the restoration of the
user database.
Jason: here's what I see on the server.
# pwd
/var/spool/mailman/lists/cyberscots
# file *
config.pck: data
config.pck.last: data
digest.mbox: UTF-8 Unicode mail text
en: setgid directory
pending.pck: ASCII text
request.pck: data
and the restore at home...
/backups/spool/mailman/lists/cyberscots
# file *
config.pck: smtp mail text
config.pck.last: smtp mail text
digest.mbox: ISO-8859 mail text
en: directory
pending.pck: smtp mail text
request.pck: data
the *.pck files from the restore all look like regular mbox files.
but the ones on the server are some sort of binary config file.
I checked against a different list, same thing.
on the server...
/var/spool/mailman/lists/lynches
# file *
config.pck: data
config.pck.last: data
we got a user db restored, at which point the gui became functional again, and
we cleared the outbound queue, which had 1400+ messages that were blocked by a
provider who'd had enough. And now, although I can send emails to the list,
they do not seem to make it all the way through the process:
Feb 29 22:15:10 colo2 amavis[27834]: (27834-18) ESMTP::10024
/var/amavisd/tmp/amavis-20080229T194128-27834: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> -> <[EMAIL
PROTECTED]> Received: SIZE=3425 from mx1.dixongroup.net ([127.0.0.1]) by
localhost (mx1.dixongroup.net [127.0.0.1]) (amavisd-new, port 10024) with ESMTP
id 27834-18 for <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>; Fri, 29 Feb 2008 22:15:10 -0500 (EST)
Feb 29 22:15:10 colo2 amavis[27834]: (27834-18) Checking: f8-BzF9WBjIQ <[EMAIL
PROTECTED]> -> <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Feb 29 22:15:11 colo2 amavis[27834]: (27834-18) FWD via SMTP: <[EMAIL
PROTECTED]> -> <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, 250 2.6.0 Ok, id=27834-18, from
MTA([127.0.0.1]:10025): 250 2.0.0 Ok: queued as 2177591EC2
Feb 29 22:15:11 colo2 amavis[27834]: (27834-18) Passed CLEAN, [71.178.250.158]
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]> -> <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, Message-ID: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>,
mail_id: f8-BzF9WBjIQ, Hits: -, 671 ms
Feb 29 22:15:11 colo2 postfix/smtp[11051]: 7D8FD91EC1: to=<[EMAIL PROTECTED]>,
orig_to=<[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, relay=127.0.0.1[127.0.0.1]:10024, delay=0.97,
delays=0.28/0/0.01/0.68, dsn=2.6.0, status=sent (250 2.6.0 Ok, id=27834-18,
from MTA([127.0.0.1]:10025): 250 2.0.0 Ok: queued as 2177591EC2)
Feb 29 22:15:11 colo2 postfix/local[406]: 2177591EC2: to=<[EMAIL PROTECTED]>,
relay=local, delay=0.71, delays=0.21/0.1/0/0.4, dsn=2.0.0, status=sent
(delivered to command: /usr/local/lib/mailman/mail/mailman post cyberscots)
Feb 29 22:16:44 colo2 amavis[28675]: (28675-20) ESMTP::10024
/var/amavisd/tmp/amavis-20080229T193117-28675: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> -> <[EMAIL
PROTECTED]> Received: SIZE=1846 from mx1.dixongroup.net ([127.0.0.1]) by
localhost (mx1.dixongroup.net [127.0.0.1]) (amavisd-new, port 10024) with ESMTP
id 28675-20 for <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>; Fri, 29 Feb 2008 22:16:44 -0500 (EST)
Feb 29 22:16:45 colo2 amavis[28675]: (28675-20) Checking: efIbYYLyUd73 <[EMAIL
PROTECTED]> -> <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Feb 29 22:16:46 colo2 amavis[28675]: (28675-20) FWD via SMTP: <[EMAIL
PROTECTED]> -> <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, 250 2.6.0 Ok, id=28675-20, from
MTA([127.0.0.1]:10025): 250 2.0.0 Ok: queued as 09BAE91EC2
Feb 29 22:16:46 colo2 amavis[28675]: (28675-20) Passed CLEAN, [204.193.93.43]
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]> -> <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, Message-ID: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>,
mail_id: efIbYYLyUd73, Hits: -2.417, 1324 ms
Feb 29 22:16:46 colo2 postfix/smtp[11051]: DB1A691EC1: to=<[EMAIL PROTECTED]>,
orig_to=<[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, relay=127.0.0.1[127.0.0.1]:10024, delay=1.5,
delays=0.13/0/0.01/1.3, dsn=2.6.0, status=sent (250 2.6.0 Ok, id=28675-20, from
MTA([127.0.0.1]:10025): 250 2.0.0 Ok: queued as 09BAE91EC2)
Feb 29 22:16:46 colo2 postfix/local[406]: 09BAE91EC2: to=<[EMAIL PROTECTED]>,
relay=local, delay=0.8, delays=0.2/0/0/0.6, dsn=2.0.0, status=sent (delivered
to command: /usr/local/lib/mailman/mail/mailman post cyberscots)
In short, it looks as if messages are being received, and they are being
delivered to the outbound queue, but nothing is happening beyond that point.
Any ideas? Please help!
Thank you,
Perry
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