[Mailman-Users] Another puzzler

Mark Sapiro msapiro at value.net
Fri Oct 6 03:30:02 CEST 2006


Martin Dennett wrote:
>Brad Knowles wrote:
>> At 7:23 AM +0100 10/4/06, Martin Dennett wrote:
>>
>>>  There is no other information in the bounce message, so how do I
>>>  find out who the message is really trying to be delivered to?
>>
>> This kind of problem is what VERP was designed to make much easier to 
>> detect.  Check the relevant FAQ entries on this subject, and keep in 
>> mind that this may require a level of access to your Mailman server 
>> that you may not have.
>>
>Will check the FAQ's, but you're correct about my server access :-(


I'm sorry to say that if as you seem to say above, no part of the
original message is quoted in the bounce message and you don't have
the ability to alter the Mailman configuration on the server, the only
thing I can think to do is to directly mail your list members and see
who bounces. You could do a kind of binary search by sending a brief,
apologetic note with Bcc: to half the list. If you get a bounce, the
offending address is in that half. If not, it's in the other half (be
sure you wait long enough). Keep repeating this process until you
narrow it down to one address. Of course, this is tedious for you and
for your non-bouncing members who will receive a number of these
probes, but I don't think there's another way.

You could examine the Received: headers in the bounce message, but I
think these will originate with the unknown server and thus, won't
help you understand how (from where) the message got to that server.

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




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