[Mailman-Users] duplicate messages

[Jon Carnes]

On Mon, 2003-04-28 at 09:00, Brad Barnett wrote:
> On 27 Apr 2003 16:53:22 -0400
> Jon Carnes <jonc at nc.rr.com> wrote:
> 
> > > > > > > >Hey all,
> > > > > > > >
> > > > > > > >I've had a very bizarre situation occur with Mailman just
> > > > > > > >last week. After one post to the list, Mailman started
> > > > > > > >generating duplicate after duplicate of this same message. 
> > > > > > > >It was caught in the process of sending the fourth message
> > > > > > > >out.
> > > > > > > >
> > > > > > > >The list.mbox file shows 4 identical messages, even if using
> > > > > > > >diff to check them against each other.  They all have the
> > > > > > > >same message ID, the same send time, etc.  Each of these
> > > > > > > >messages was sent to the over 10k users on this list, and I
> > > > > > > >still don't know why.
> > > > > > >
> > > > > > > What version of Mailman are you using?
> > > > > >
> > > > > >
> > > > > >2.0.13, on Redhat 8.0.
> > > > > > >
> > 
> > I've only seen this kind of behavior in Mailman 2.0.13 when the server
> > ran out of resources (or was restarted) in the middle of a delivery.
> > 
> > I suggest you look at your system resources - in particular your RAM and
> > your disk space.  I have a feeling that you ran out of RAM while trying
> > to process mail going out to your list.
> > 
> 
> I can't see it being a ram issue.  This box has 256M of ram and 500M of
> swap.  It (generally) does not put a heavy load on those resources.  Right
> now it has 84M of ram free, after being up for a week, with almost no swap
> used.  
> 
> My take on this is that the box hasn't even used all of its resources,
> otherwise it would have ram full with cached libs and what not.  I also
> just checked the boot.log on this box, and it was rebooted (for some odd
> reason) just before the message was sent out.  This box has been using
> Mailman for over a year with no issues, and was fresh (read, ram clean)
> just before this batch was sent out.  
> 
This sends up a big flag... *why* was the server rebooted?  Upgrade,
disk problems, restores from backup, security added...???

> I don't think it was a ram issue.. and hard drive space seems fine.
> 
> Any other ideas or possibilities?    
> 

Hmmm - I'm still suspicious of your system resources.  How big is your
config file for the list:
  ls -lh ~mailman/lists/<listname>

What are the results of a "df -ah"

Does the following command run without error: 
  ~mailman/bin/check_db <listname>
 
Did you upgrade or modify any features of your OS just before the errors
began to happen - as an example, did you upgrade your Python
installation on the server?  Did you install or upgrade TripWire or some
other system scanning app?

Locking issues can also cause similar problems.  Are your running any
Anti-virus or Anti-spam apps on the server? TripWire? Msec? Backup/rsync
routines for replication in case of failure?  Anything that can add an
external lock on the files that are being used.

Also,what type of archiving are you doing - do you run an external mail
archiver?

Lots of questions... I hope they lead you to an answer!

Jon Carnes