Log file: smtp-failure

Sept. 28, 2007


      This is really an "is my understanding correct" question...
Our mail server is getting the snot beat out of it by spambots, and even
though I've turned on pretty aggressive connection rate control and
limiting of the number of concurrent connections from any particular bot,
we still occasionally hit sendmail's (configured) limit of 70 child
processes, at which point we start refusing connections for awhile.  During
those times, mailman is also refused connections, resulting in errors like
this from smtp-failure:
Log file: smtp-failure
 23 delivery failed with code -1: (111, 'Connection refused')
  1 Low level smtp error: (111, 'Connection refused'), msgid: 
<mailman.9.1190894402.11108.some-list@icpsr.umich.edu>
1 Low level smtp error: (111, 'Connection refused'), msgid:
<mailman.8.1190894402.11108.some-other-list@icpsr.umich.edu>
Am I correct that Mailman doesn't consider these permanent errors, and will
re-try these attempts later?  Nothing seems to be left lying around in the
queue files, so I'm hoping that subsequent retries succeeded, and not that
Mailman just gave up and tossed things.  (That doesn't seem likely to me,
but I figured it was better to ask, so I know if I have to spend more time
trying to figure out how to make sendmail only refuse connections on the
non-localhost interface.  Although if anyone knows the magic knob to do
that, I would appreciate a hint.)
--
Steve Burling                                    <mailto:srb@umich.edu>
University of Michigan, ICPSR                    Voice: +1 734 615.3779
330 Packard Street                               FAX:   +1 734 647.8700
Ann Arbor, MI 48104-2910

Query about low-level SMTP errors

Steve Burling

Log file: smtp-failure

Mark Sapiro

Log file: smtp-failure

Mark Sapiro

Log file: smtp-failure

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