[Mailman-Users] 100s of copies of test mail

[Brad Knowles]

At 1:43 AM +0100 2004-12-17, Jim Newton wrote:

>  i recently setup a mailing list of about 1500 people.
>  and now i am getting a lot of mail from the subscribers
>  saying that they are getting 100s of emails per day
>  of exactly the same thing.  Here is a copy
>  of one of the complaints for a subscriber with
>  full header.  can someone help me find out what is
>  wrong?

	Looking at just one message will tell you nothing.  You've got to 
look at your log entries, and copies of many different messages. 
Make sure that you look at *all* the headers, not just the "From:", 
"To:", "Subject:", etc... that you normally see.

	Figure out what is the same between these various messages and 
what is different.  That will tell you where the problem is, and give 
you a hint as to what needs to be fixed.


	But we can't really help you with any of this.  You are probably 
the only person who has the necessary access to the various pieces of 
information needed.  Moreover, this is basic mail systems 
administration, and you need to be able to figure out how to go 
through this process.  Either that, or you need to pay someone else 
to do this for you.

	We can give you some advice and hints, but that's about it.


	Without knowing anything else about your systems or the problems 
you're having, the only hint I am capable of giving you is to make 
sure that you look at all of the "Received:" headers for the messages 
in question, and look for strings of apparently random characters 
like "iBGJY9Pv093185" and "iBEF0k2a069437" which follow the phrase 
"with ESMTP id", and then try to match those against your MTA and 
Mailman log files.

-- 
Brad Knowles, <brad at stop.mail-abuse.org>

"Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little
temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety."

     -- Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790), reply of the Pennsylvania
     Assembly to the Governor, November 11, 1755

   SAGE member since 1995.  See <http://www.sage.org/> for more info.