[Mailman-Users] Diagnosing duplicates [Was:Now MTA tweaking!]

Nigel Metheringham Nigel.Metheringham at dev.InTechnology.co.uk
Mon Sep 23 13:51:54 CEST 2002


Change in subject line - its a different thread...

On Mon, 2002-09-23 at 12:32, Angel Gabriel wrote:
> I decided to send out my list over the
> weekend... I came in today, *monday* and I found that a LOT of email boxes
> had gotten repeat emails, and really pissed off my subscribers. And I don't
> mean like two or three I mean REPEAT emails, like 12, 13. How can I found
> out what caused this?

The answer is you need to get at least 2 of the duplicates (ideally all
the duplicates that reached a single address), with the full headers -
specifically you need the received lines.

You then compare the received headers on each one and work out where the
paths of the 2 mails diverged.

This could be:-
  - the original poster sent several copies (happens quite often)
    in this case you see the received lines are different
    at every stage
  - the senders MTA duplicated it
    (first - thats the bottom one in the message headers - received
    line is exactly the same, the rest are different).
  - mailman duplicated it
    (different received lines on the list delivery MTA)
  - the list delivery MTA duplicated it (subtly different)
  - someone's virus scanner reinjected it (they *must* die!!!)
  - someone's vacation mailer reinjected it (they must die and their
    whole domain be blocked - actually same applies for the virus
    scanner too).

There are other possibilities too... and never underestimate how
determined some idiots can be to loop your mail.

	Nigel.
-- 
[ Nigel Metheringham           Nigel.Metheringham at InTechnology.co.uk ]
[ - Comments in this message are my own and not ITO opinion/policy - ]





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