Strange problem after a year of service
I run a hosting company that subcontracts the space on virtual servers from an outside company. These servers are UNIX boxes. I've had a mail list set up that revolves about 100+ messages a day through it's doors to over 350 members. I recently upgraded my server space (about 2:30 today) and the list stopped working at about 2:30 today. Hmmmm. They (the techs) said that the only thing they did was allocate more space on the servers I was on for me to use and they touched nothing else. I can tail my e-mail to the SMTP server and it states that it has been sent, but I get nothing posted to the mailman list. The directories are still there, and I can get into the html pages (http://server.server.com/admin/list) but I receive no mail. I'm a Windows guy (sorry) so I don't totally understand UNIX environments. Ids there something I should check or try off the top of your heads? I have several clients on the list and I'm SURE this doesn't look good to them. Thanks for the help!
Brian
If you can get to the mail logs on the server (someplace in /var/log/ maybe, often called "mail." something, and do a "tail -f logfilename" while you send some mail to the list, you can sometimes gain some insights.
What kind of UNIX? What's the e-mail software? Sendmail?
On Tue, Jan 15, 2002 at 10:11:09PM -0800, Pro-phile Technology Solutions wrote:
I run a hosting company that subcontracts the space on virtual servers from an outside company. These servers are UNIX boxes. I've had a mail list set up that revolves about 100+ messages a day through it's doors to over 350 members. I recently upgraded my server space (about 2:30 today) and the list stopped working at about 2:30 today. Hmmmm. They (the techs) said that the only thing they did was allocate more space on the servers I was on for me to use and they touched nothing else. I can tail my e-mail to the SMTP server and it states that it has been sent, but I get nothing posted to the mailman list. The directories are still there, and I can get into the html pages (http://server.server.com/admin/list) but I receive no mail. I'm a Windows guy (sorry) so I don't totally understand UNIX environments. Ids there something I should check or try off the top of your heads? I have several clients on the list and I'm SURE this doesn't look good to them. Thanks for the help!
Brian
Mailman-Developers mailing list Mailman-Developers@python.org http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/mailman-developers
-- Dan Wilder <wilder@eskimo.com>
"DW" == Dan Wilder <wilder@eskimo.com> writes:
DW> If you can get to the mail logs on the server (someplace in
DW> /var/log/ maybe, often called "mail." something, and do a
DW> "tail -f logfilename" while you send some mail to the list,
DW> you can sometimes gain some insights.Yep, also check the Mailman logs in $prefix/logs and check the Mailman queue $prefix/qfiles. What version of Mailman? What version of Python? Did any of these change? Did they upgrade any system software? Did they muck with cron? Maybe your crontab entries got wasted.
"PTS" == Pro-phile Technology Solutions <mailman@pro-phile.com> writes:
PTS> I recently upgraded my server space (about 2:30 today) and
PTS> the list stopped working at about 2:30 today. Hmmmm. They
PTS> (the techs) said that the only thing they did was allocate
PTS> more space on the servers I was on for me to use and they
PTS> touched nothing else.As a former (and sometimes current reluctant) sysadmin, I just don't believe this. :) It's too suspicious.
-Barry
On Wed, Jan 16, 2002 at 08:01:35AM -0500, Barry A. Warsaw wrote:
"DW" == Dan Wilder <wilder@eskimo.com> writes:
DW> If you can get to the mail logs on the server (someplace in DW> /var/log/ maybe, often called "mail." something, and do a DW> "tail -f logfilename" while you send some mail to the list, DW> you can sometimes gain some insights.Yep, also check the Mailman logs in $prefix/logs and check the Mailman queue $prefix/qfiles. What version of Mailman? What version of Python? Did any of these change? Did they upgrade any system software? Did they muck with cron? Maybe your crontab entries got wasted.
"PTS" == Pro-phile Technology Solutions <mailman@pro-phile.com> writes:
PTS> I recently upgraded my server space (about 2:30 today) and PTS> the list stopped working at about 2:30 today. Hmmmm. They PTS> (the techs) said that the only thing they did was allocate PTS> more space on the servers I was on for me to use and they PTS> touched nothing else.As a former (and sometimes current reluctant) sysadmin, I just don't believe this. :) It's too suspicious.
As a current sysadmin, amen!
The original querant had emailed me personally and I replied without thinking to copy the list. I'd suggested he check cron, both the crontab (or /etc/cron*/whatever) entry for qrunner, to see whether it had been deleted, and the cron daemon. Sometimes after a severe clock-shaking it's useful to "killall -HUP crond" to get it moving again.
Of course the prudent sysadmin would reboot at that point, as crond isn't the only daemon that'll sulk following a period of temporal chaos. Postfix is my favorite; short of reboot, I'll always do a "postfix reload" following a significant clock jump on a server I can't reboot at that time.
--
Dan Wilder <dan@ssc.com> Technical Manager & Editor SSC, Inc. P.O. Box 55549 Phone: 206-782-8808 Seattle, WA 98155-0549 URL http://embedded.linuxjournal.com/
Thanks to all, here is the e-mail I received back from the techs: Response: Honestly don't remember making any changes, while investigating and checking file permissions ownership and other things, you got back to us stating that it was working. I can't take credit for something I honestly don't think I fixed. Support
Me: The only thing I did was pico into some of the files to check to see if they were rewritten, corrupted, etc. I restarted the system about 5 times and I also tailed the messages to see where they were going. Beyond that, nothing was done. Things that make ya go hmmmmmmmmm. Thanks for all of the immediate help out there. I'll archive this info on my servers in case it happens again. Thanks again all of you!
Brian mailman@pro-phile.com
----- Original Message ----- From: "Dan Wilder" <dan@ssc.com> To: <mailman-developers@python.org> Sent: Wednesday, January 16, 2002 8:07 AM Subject: Re: [Mailman-Developers] Strange problem after a year of service
On Wed, Jan 16, 2002 at 08:01:35AM -0500, Barry A. Warsaw wrote:
"DW" == Dan Wilder <wilder@eskimo.com> writes:
DW> If you can get to the mail logs on the server (someplace in DW> /var/log/ maybe, often called "mail." something, and do a DW> "tail -f logfilename" while you send some mail to the list, DW> you can sometimes gain some insights.Yep, also check the Mailman logs in $prefix/logs and check the Mailman queue $prefix/qfiles. What version of Mailman? What version of Python? Did any of these change? Did they upgrade any system software? Did they muck with cron? Maybe your crontab entries got wasted.
"PTS" == Pro-phile Technology Solutions <mailman@pro-phile.com>
writes:
PTS> I recently upgraded my server space (about 2:30 today) and PTS> the list stopped working at about 2:30 today. Hmmmm. They PTS> (the techs) said that the only thing they did was allocate PTS> more space on the servers I was on for me to use and they PTS> touched nothing else.As a former (and sometimes current reluctant) sysadmin, I just don't believe this. :) It's too suspicious.
As a current sysadmin, amen!
The original querant had emailed me personally and I replied without thinking to copy the list. I'd suggested he check cron, both the crontab (or /etc/cron*/whatever) entry for qrunner, to see whether it had been deleted, and the cron daemon. Sometimes after a severe clock-shaking it's useful to "killall -HUP crond" to get it moving again.
Of course the prudent sysadmin would reboot at that point, as crond isn't the only daemon that'll sulk following a period of temporal chaos. Postfix is my favorite; short of reboot, I'll always do a "postfix reload" following a significant clock jump on a server I can't reboot at that time.
--
Dan Wilder <dan@ssc.com> Technical Manager & Editor SSC, Inc. P.O. Box 55549 Phone: 206-782-8808 Seattle, WA 98155-0549 URL http://embedded.linuxjournal.com/
Mailman-Developers mailing list Mailman-Developers@python.org http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/mailman-developers
On Wed, Jan 16, 2002 at 08:07:50AM -0800, Dan Wilder wrote:
Of course the prudent sysadmin would reboot at that point, as crond isn't the only daemon that'll sulk following a period of temporal chaos.
As much Buffy as I've been watching the past two months; that sentence is just *beyond* funny.
Cheers, -- jra
Jay R. Ashworth jra@baylink.com Member of the Technical Staff Baylink RFC 2100 The Suncoast Freenet The Things I Think Tampa Bay, Florida http://baylink.pitas.com +1 727 647 1274
"If you don't have a dream; how're you gonna have a dream come true?" -- Captain Sensible, The Damned (from South Pacific's "Happy Talk")
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