[Mailman-Users] Admin email on errors?

[Mark Sapiro]

Kurt Werle wrote:

>I have twice got the following error:
>---
>Mar 14 22:41:58 2006 mailmanctl(54): The master qrunner lock could not be
>acquired.  It appears as though there is
>a stale master qrunner lock.  Try re-running mailmanctl with the -s flag.
>Mar 14 22:41:58 2006 mailmanctl(54):
>Mar 14 22:56:02 2006 mailmanctl(48): The master qrunner lock could not be
>acquired, because it appears as if some
>process on some other host may have acquired it.  We can't test for stale
>locks across host boundaries, so you'll have to do this manually.  Or, if you
>know the lock is stale, re-run mailmanctl with the -s flag.
>---


These errors are the result of a 'mailmanctl start' when mailmanctl was
either already running or died in some 'unclean' way. Are there any
messages in the 'error' or 'qrunner' logs that might illuminate the
problem that caused you to want to do the 'mailmanctl start' in the
first place. And, if not and mailmanctl died ungracefully, it's
unlikely to be able to successfully send you an email about the
situation.


>and I can live with that.  What is a drag is the fact that it takes a user
>telling me "hey, why isn't list mail going out?" to find out that mailman
>has stopped processing.
>
>I don't see anywhere in the docs that mailman will send mail to the site
>admin in the event of a catastrophic error.  Am I missing it?


No. It doesn't exist, because in it's death throes it's unlikely to be
able to send mail any more.


>Has anyone
>hacked it in?  Do I have to write a cron job that will poll the process
>list to see if mailman is still running?  Has anyone written that already?


There are posts in the mailman-users archives about this.


The real solution is to find the underlying problem and fix it so
Mailman doesn't die.

-- 
Mark Sapiro <msapiro at value.net>       The highway is for gamblers,
San Francisco Bay Area, California    better use your sense - B. Dylan