It seems my attachment didn't make it through the first time. Here's the patch: diff -Naur mailman-2.1.5.orig/Mailman/Defaults.py.in mailman-2.1.5/Mailman/Defaults.py.in --- mailman-2.1.5.orig/Mailman/Defaults.py.in 2004-04-24 19:30:03.000000000 -0700 +++ mailman-2.1.5/Mailman/Defaults.py.in 2005-01-26 13:18:07.000000000 -0800 @@ -348,6 +348,7 @@ # #DELIVERY_MODULE = 'Sendmail' DELIVERY_MODULE = 'SMTPDirect' +SMTP_DELIVERY_TIMEOUT = minutes(10) # MTA should name a module in Mailman/MTA which provides the MTA specific # functionality for creating and removing lists. Some MTAs like Exim can be diff -Naur mailman-2.1.5.orig/Mailman/Handlers/SMTPDirect.py mailman-2.1.5/Mailman/Handlers/SMTPDirect.py --- mailman-2.1.5.orig/Mailman/Handlers/SMTPDirect.py 2004-01-22 15:02:07.000000000 -0800 +++ mailman-2.1.5/Mailman/Handlers/SMTPDirect.py 2005-01-26 13:18:07.000000000 -0800 @@ -67,7 +67,12 @@ if self.__conn is None: self.__connect() try: + def handler (signum, frame): + raise smtplib.SMTPException('SMTP Delivery Timeout exceeded') + signal.signal(signal.SIGALRM, handler) + signal.alarm(mm_cfg.SMTP_DELIVERY_TIMEOUT) results = self.__conn.sendmail(envsender, recips, msgtext) + signal.alarm(0) except smtplib.SMTPException: # For safety, close this connection. The next send attempt will # automatically re-open it. Pass the exception on up. On Fri, 28 Jan 2005 09:18:31 -0800, Thien Vu wrote:

It should but the MTA we're connecting to is a load balancer, and this is a known issue with our load balancer vendor (the backend goes down but the load balancer doesn't terminate the connection), but this could happen for a variety of other reasons.

I chose to do this rather than SO_KEEPALIVE because the socket interface isn't really exposed through the smtplib module.

Thien

On Fri, 28 Jan 2005 11:01:30 +0100, Brad Knowles wrote:

...

At 9:00 PM -0800 2005-01-27, Thien Vu wrote:

...

The patch I've attached is a simple alarm around the SMTPDirect.py call into smtplib to terminate the connection after a configurable amount of time. Right now I have it set to minutes(10) but it's completely configurable via mm_cfg.py

That's very weird. The MTA should be dropping those connections after five minutes of idle time (I think that's the recommended value). Obviously, in your case the MTA is not doing this, so the client should definitely be protecting itself against being hung indefinitely.

-- Brad Knowles,

"Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety."

-- Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790), reply of the Pennsylvania Assembly to the Governor, November 11, 1755

SAGE member since 1995. See http://www.sage.org/ for more info.