[Mailman-Users] Making sure MailMan is running...

[Barry Finkel]

Jason Pruim <japruim at raoset.com> wrote:

>Hi Everyone...
>
>I have looked around on the web and haven't found any info that I  
>understand about making sure that mailman is receiving and sending e- 
>mail that is sent into it. I just had a situation where on my site  
>(With real low volume lists) that it was not sending mail since the 11  
>of december...
>
>Would it be best to watch for the qrunner process and make sure that's  
>running? Or is there a better way? I'm planning on writing this into a  
>Widget (For all you Macintosh people out there) if I can find a good  
>way to make sure this is up and running.
>
>Thanks for taking the time to read and post any info you have! :)

I monitor 12 different mail systems (including one Mailman system)
from one Unix mailer.  I have a script for each mail system that, every
15 minutes, sends a mail message to the system.  For Mailman, the
mail is sent to a Mailman list that I have created.
That list has one subscriber - the e-mail address from which the test
mail originates.  The mail, if Mailman is working properly, will
receive the posting and then send it back to the single address.
The script, after sending the mail, waits up to 10 minutes for the
return mail to appear in the Unix mailbox.  If the mail does not appear
in 10 minutes, the script sends alert pages to the Mailman support
personnel.  If I start getting pages from many of the 12 mail system
watch crons, I know that either there is a big networking problem or
the mail system from which I send the crons is having problems.
For Mailman, the return mail usually returns within 1-3 seconds.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Barry S. Finkel
Computing and Information Systems Division
Argonne National Laboratory          Phone:    +1 (630) 252-7277
9700 South Cass Avenue               Facsimile:+1 (630) 252-4601
Building 222, Room D209              Internet: BSFinkel at anl.gov
Argonne, IL   60439-4828             IBMMAIL:  I1004994