Admin approval messages not being sent
![](https://secure.gravatar.com/avatar/acf9a041b1958056bfb75480e8be4df5.jpg?s=120&d=mm&r=g)
Hello,
Confirmation messages sent to users are being sent successfully. Messages intended as approval for subscriptions and sent to the list administrators are not being sent. They appear as 'held subscription' in the mail logs.
The list has the *admin_immed_notify* set to 'yes'. The cron /cron/checkdbs runs every morning at 8 am.
I have read of possible Handler exceptions in Mailman, but the error logs don't show anything.
What else could I look for to diagnose this problem?
Thank you.
-- Christopher Adams adamsca@gmail.com
![](https://secure.gravatar.com/avatar/56f108518d7ee2544412cc80978e3182.jpg?s=120&d=mm&r=g)
Christopher Adams wrote:
Are you saying that you see a 'held subscription' message in Mailman's 'vette' log?
Do the held subscriptions appear in the web admindb interface?
The list has the *admin_immed_notify* set to 'yes'. The cron /cron/checkdbs runs every morning at 8 am.
Does the held subscription appear in the daily summary of moderator requests?
Is the listname-owner address deliverable? Is mail to that address delivered to the list's owner and moderator addresses?
-- Mark Sapiro <mark@msapiro.net> The highway is for gamblers, San Francisco Bay Area, California better use your sense - B. Dylan
![](https://secure.gravatar.com/avatar/acf9a041b1958056bfb75480e8be4df5.jpg?s=120&d=mm&r=g)
On Thu, Mar 28, 2013 at 1:10 PM, Mark Sapiro <mark@msapiro.net> wrote:
Yes, it shows in the vette.log as being held.
Yes, it is sent successfully every morning at 8 am. Until I get this fixed, I have increased this to every 2 hrs.
Is the listname-owner address deliverable? Is mail to that address delivered to the list's owner and moderator addresses?
Yes, I can send directly to the list owner address and to the actual person's address.
-- Christopher Adams adamsca@gmail.com
![](https://secure.gravatar.com/avatar/56f108518d7ee2544412cc80978e3182.jpg?s=120&d=mm&r=g)
Christopher Adams wrote:
The notice to the owner(s)/moderator(s) is sent by the same process immediately following writing the vette log entry contingent only on admin_immed_notify being True.
The message is sent From: and To: the listname-owner address with envelope from the listname-bounces address.
Check Mailman's smtp log for entries with the same or perhaps + 1 or 2 seconds time stamp as the vette log entry. There should be a send for 1 recip for the list followed immediately by a send for a number of recips = to the number of owner(s)/moderator(s). Do you see these? How about in the MTA logs?
-- Mark Sapiro <mark@msapiro.net> The highway is for gamblers, San Francisco Bay Area, California better use your sense - B. Dylan
![](https://secure.gravatar.com/avatar/acf9a041b1958056bfb75480e8be4df5.jpg?s=120&d=mm&r=g)
I see the message in the Mailman smtp log going to the list and the two list owners. I also see the message directed to the list owner address in the MTA logs. However, the message is not actually being delivered to the list owner via the alias. I have discovered that, using owner addresses outside of our subnet work for getting confirmation approvals. However, they don't for addresses inside our subnet. That is strange because the owner addresses are deliverable and receive mail through list traffic via Mailman.
On Thu, Mar 28, 2013 at 5:25 PM, Mark Sapiro <mark@msapiro.net> wrote:
-- Christopher Adams adamsca@gmail.com
![](https://secure.gravatar.com/avatar/56f108518d7ee2544412cc80978e3182.jpg?s=120&d=mm&r=g)
On 4/1/2013 8:22 AM, Christopher Adams wrote:
This is what I think I understand from the above.
- The notice is sent as expected by Mailman to LISTNAME-owner@...
- The message to LISTNAME-owner@... is received by Mailman and resent by Mailman to all the owner and moderator addresses.
- Those owner and moderator addresses outside your local subnet receive the notice, but those inside your local subnet do not.
- Presumably, the same is true for any mail sent to the LISTNAME-owner@... address, i.e., the non-delivery issue does not depend on the mail to LISTNAME-owner@... having been generated by Mailman itself.
Is this understanding correct?
Do the 'inside' owner/moderator addresses have a fully qualified domain name?
Owners and moderators do not receive list posts. Only members receive list posts. There is no connection within Mailman between an owner/moderator address and a list member address which may be the same. See <http://wiki.list.org/x/5YA9>.
In any case, if my understanding above is correct, and if the owner/moderator 'inside' addresses are fully qualified, this is an MTA issue, not a Mailman issue.
-- Mark Sapiro <mark@msapiro.net> The highway is for gamblers, San Francisco Bay Area, California better use your sense - B. Dylan
![](https://secure.gravatar.com/avatar/acf9a041b1958056bfb75480e8be4df5.jpg?s=120&d=mm&r=g)
I did not mean to imply that there was a connection between the owners and list posts, just that Mailman list traffic is flowing without problems.
Your assumptions 1-3 are correct. As for #4, if I understand you correctly, I can send mail outside of Mailman to the listname-owner address and it delivers correcty regardless of whether the list owners are inside the local subnet. The problem only seems to occur when sending through the Mailman server and Postfix. I have been considering that Postfix is the possible problem, but since list traffic is working fine, I don't know exactly what to address with the MTA.
The 'inside' addresses are fully qualified.
It is also possible that the central server that mail is routed through is not looking kindly on the admin notifications, so I will look in to that as well as problems with Postfix.
Thank you for taking time to reply.
On Mon, Apr 1, 2013 at 9:58 AM, Mark Sapiro <mark@msapiro.net> wrote:
-- Christopher Adams adamsca@gmail.com
![](https://secure.gravatar.com/avatar/56f108518d7ee2544412cc80978e3182.jpg?s=120&d=mm&r=g)
Christopher Adams wrote:
When you send mail originating outside Mailman to the listname-owner address it is ultimately delivered to Postfix from Mailman for the owner/moderator recipients in exactly the same way as a Mailman generated notice.
There are a few differences in the headers of the message ultimately sent to the owner/moderator recipients and of course, the bodies are different (but you could test manually sending a copy of an actual notice).
The major difference is the From: header which in the cast of the message you send has hour address and in the case of the notice has the listname-owner address. The notice also has headers like
Precedence: bulk X-BeenThere: listname@example.com X-Mailman-Version: ... List-Id: ... X-List-Administrivia: yes
that probably aren't in the manually generated message.
Perhaps the issue is that there is spam filtering in the local network that discards Precedence: bulk messages destined for local recipients.
Yes, particularly the Precedence: header.
-- Mark Sapiro <mark@msapiro.net> The highway is for gamblers, San Francisco Bay Area, California better use your sense - B. Dylan
![](https://secure.gravatar.com/avatar/acf9a041b1958056bfb75480e8be4df5.jpg?s=120&d=mm&r=g)
Thank you, Mark. It has been awhile, as I submitted a ticket to the provider of mail, but they have not been responding. I do thank you for the suggestion and am following up a second time with them and will post when I have a resolution.
On Mon, Apr 1, 2013 at 2:40 PM, Mark Sapiro <mark@msapiro.net> wrote:
-- Christopher Adams adamsca@gmail.com
![](https://secure.gravatar.com/avatar/acf9a041b1958056bfb75480e8be4df5.jpg?s=120&d=mm&r=g)
Apparently, the central mail server does not filter spam by examining headers. It uses Fortiguard to look for identified spam and then flag IPs that send an inordinate amount of "spam". Our system handles over 600 lists and 250,000 subscribers, so there is a lot of opportunities for spam to get through. The lists don't send spam, but the owner addresses are open for sending (weakness of Mailman) and for whatever reason, legitimate mail is being flagged with a hash by Fortiguard.
All the Fortiguard problems aside, are there any suggested ways to harden Postfix for use withe Mailman at the volume we are using it. Maybe this is a question for the Postfix list. I have already implemented many of the configuration ideas to cut down on spam, though have not implemented an actual spam application like SpamAssassin.
Many thanks,
On Wed, Apr 24, 2013 at 3:42 PM, Christopher Adams <adamsca@gmail.com>wrote:
-- Christopher Adams adamsca@gmail.com
![](https://secure.gravatar.com/avatar/56f108518d7ee2544412cc80978e3182.jpg?s=120&d=mm&r=g)
Christopher Adams wrote:
Are you saying that you see a 'held subscription' message in Mailman's 'vette' log?
Do the held subscriptions appear in the web admindb interface?
The list has the *admin_immed_notify* set to 'yes'. The cron /cron/checkdbs runs every morning at 8 am.
Does the held subscription appear in the daily summary of moderator requests?
Is the listname-owner address deliverable? Is mail to that address delivered to the list's owner and moderator addresses?
-- Mark Sapiro <mark@msapiro.net> The highway is for gamblers, San Francisco Bay Area, California better use your sense - B. Dylan
![](https://secure.gravatar.com/avatar/acf9a041b1958056bfb75480e8be4df5.jpg?s=120&d=mm&r=g)
On Thu, Mar 28, 2013 at 1:10 PM, Mark Sapiro <mark@msapiro.net> wrote:
Yes, it shows in the vette.log as being held.
Yes, it is sent successfully every morning at 8 am. Until I get this fixed, I have increased this to every 2 hrs.
Is the listname-owner address deliverable? Is mail to that address delivered to the list's owner and moderator addresses?
Yes, I can send directly to the list owner address and to the actual person's address.
-- Christopher Adams adamsca@gmail.com
![](https://secure.gravatar.com/avatar/56f108518d7ee2544412cc80978e3182.jpg?s=120&d=mm&r=g)
Christopher Adams wrote:
The notice to the owner(s)/moderator(s) is sent by the same process immediately following writing the vette log entry contingent only on admin_immed_notify being True.
The message is sent From: and To: the listname-owner address with envelope from the listname-bounces address.
Check Mailman's smtp log for entries with the same or perhaps + 1 or 2 seconds time stamp as the vette log entry. There should be a send for 1 recip for the list followed immediately by a send for a number of recips = to the number of owner(s)/moderator(s). Do you see these? How about in the MTA logs?
-- Mark Sapiro <mark@msapiro.net> The highway is for gamblers, San Francisco Bay Area, California better use your sense - B. Dylan
![](https://secure.gravatar.com/avatar/acf9a041b1958056bfb75480e8be4df5.jpg?s=120&d=mm&r=g)
I see the message in the Mailman smtp log going to the list and the two list owners. I also see the message directed to the list owner address in the MTA logs. However, the message is not actually being delivered to the list owner via the alias. I have discovered that, using owner addresses outside of our subnet work for getting confirmation approvals. However, they don't for addresses inside our subnet. That is strange because the owner addresses are deliverable and receive mail through list traffic via Mailman.
On Thu, Mar 28, 2013 at 5:25 PM, Mark Sapiro <mark@msapiro.net> wrote:
-- Christopher Adams adamsca@gmail.com
![](https://secure.gravatar.com/avatar/56f108518d7ee2544412cc80978e3182.jpg?s=120&d=mm&r=g)
On 4/1/2013 8:22 AM, Christopher Adams wrote:
This is what I think I understand from the above.
- The notice is sent as expected by Mailman to LISTNAME-owner@...
- The message to LISTNAME-owner@... is received by Mailman and resent by Mailman to all the owner and moderator addresses.
- Those owner and moderator addresses outside your local subnet receive the notice, but those inside your local subnet do not.
- Presumably, the same is true for any mail sent to the LISTNAME-owner@... address, i.e., the non-delivery issue does not depend on the mail to LISTNAME-owner@... having been generated by Mailman itself.
Is this understanding correct?
Do the 'inside' owner/moderator addresses have a fully qualified domain name?
Owners and moderators do not receive list posts. Only members receive list posts. There is no connection within Mailman between an owner/moderator address and a list member address which may be the same. See <http://wiki.list.org/x/5YA9>.
In any case, if my understanding above is correct, and if the owner/moderator 'inside' addresses are fully qualified, this is an MTA issue, not a Mailman issue.
-- Mark Sapiro <mark@msapiro.net> The highway is for gamblers, San Francisco Bay Area, California better use your sense - B. Dylan
![](https://secure.gravatar.com/avatar/acf9a041b1958056bfb75480e8be4df5.jpg?s=120&d=mm&r=g)
I did not mean to imply that there was a connection between the owners and list posts, just that Mailman list traffic is flowing without problems.
Your assumptions 1-3 are correct. As for #4, if I understand you correctly, I can send mail outside of Mailman to the listname-owner address and it delivers correcty regardless of whether the list owners are inside the local subnet. The problem only seems to occur when sending through the Mailman server and Postfix. I have been considering that Postfix is the possible problem, but since list traffic is working fine, I don't know exactly what to address with the MTA.
The 'inside' addresses are fully qualified.
It is also possible that the central server that mail is routed through is not looking kindly on the admin notifications, so I will look in to that as well as problems with Postfix.
Thank you for taking time to reply.
On Mon, Apr 1, 2013 at 9:58 AM, Mark Sapiro <mark@msapiro.net> wrote:
-- Christopher Adams adamsca@gmail.com
![](https://secure.gravatar.com/avatar/56f108518d7ee2544412cc80978e3182.jpg?s=120&d=mm&r=g)
Christopher Adams wrote:
When you send mail originating outside Mailman to the listname-owner address it is ultimately delivered to Postfix from Mailman for the owner/moderator recipients in exactly the same way as a Mailman generated notice.
There are a few differences in the headers of the message ultimately sent to the owner/moderator recipients and of course, the bodies are different (but you could test manually sending a copy of an actual notice).
The major difference is the From: header which in the cast of the message you send has hour address and in the case of the notice has the listname-owner address. The notice also has headers like
Precedence: bulk X-BeenThere: listname@example.com X-Mailman-Version: ... List-Id: ... X-List-Administrivia: yes
that probably aren't in the manually generated message.
Perhaps the issue is that there is spam filtering in the local network that discards Precedence: bulk messages destined for local recipients.
Yes, particularly the Precedence: header.
-- Mark Sapiro <mark@msapiro.net> The highway is for gamblers, San Francisco Bay Area, California better use your sense - B. Dylan
![](https://secure.gravatar.com/avatar/acf9a041b1958056bfb75480e8be4df5.jpg?s=120&d=mm&r=g)
Thank you, Mark. It has been awhile, as I submitted a ticket to the provider of mail, but they have not been responding. I do thank you for the suggestion and am following up a second time with them and will post when I have a resolution.
On Mon, Apr 1, 2013 at 2:40 PM, Mark Sapiro <mark@msapiro.net> wrote:
-- Christopher Adams adamsca@gmail.com
![](https://secure.gravatar.com/avatar/acf9a041b1958056bfb75480e8be4df5.jpg?s=120&d=mm&r=g)
Apparently, the central mail server does not filter spam by examining headers. It uses Fortiguard to look for identified spam and then flag IPs that send an inordinate amount of "spam". Our system handles over 600 lists and 250,000 subscribers, so there is a lot of opportunities for spam to get through. The lists don't send spam, but the owner addresses are open for sending (weakness of Mailman) and for whatever reason, legitimate mail is being flagged with a hash by Fortiguard.
All the Fortiguard problems aside, are there any suggested ways to harden Postfix for use withe Mailman at the volume we are using it. Maybe this is a question for the Postfix list. I have already implemented many of the configuration ideas to cut down on spam, though have not implemented an actual spam application like SpamAssassin.
Many thanks,
On Wed, Apr 24, 2013 at 3:42 PM, Christopher Adams <adamsca@gmail.com>wrote:
-- Christopher Adams adamsca@gmail.com
participants (2)
-
Christopher Adams
-
Mark Sapiro