[Mailman-Users] Email response very slow using Mailman and sendmail

[Hank van Cleef]

The esteemed Patil, Manjiri S has said:
> 
> Hi, 
> 
> We have internal Mailing List server running Mailman 2.1.9 and SENDMAIL
> 8.13.8. Whenever someone sent email to particular mailing list
> (everyone at managemant.bu.edu)consisting app 300 users recipients receive
> it after several hours. E.g see the following Email I sent on Apr14th at
> 3:19PM that came in at 6:09 PM and some received at 7:09 PM. I don't
> understand why there is so much delay when sending mail to 300 users
> mailing list. I clearly see in Outlook headers that the mail is sitting
> on Mailman for approximately 2hours . 
> 
> 
> Here is the corresponding SENDMAIL Log.
> 
>  
> >>Apr 14 15:19:42 smgpub sendmail[32663]: m3EJJgII032663:
> from=<mpatil at bu.edu>, size=2721, class=0, nrcpt s=1,
> msgid=<2DE012B637518B4BB1F1C1F4AA570FB802148BC1 at ENG-EXCHANGE1.ad.bu.edu>
> , proto=ESMTP, daemon=MTA,  relay=relay1.bu.edu [128.197.27.99]
> 
> >>Apr 14 15:19:42 smgpub sendmail[32664]: m3EJJgII032663:
> to="|/usr/lib/mailman/mail/mailman post everyone",
> ctladdr=<everyone at management.bu.edu> (8/0), delay=00:00:00,
> xdelay=00:00:00, mailer=prog, pri=32911 , dsn=2.0.0, stat=Sent
> 
> >>Apr 14 15:19:50 smgpub sendmail[32667]: m3EJJk3b032666:
> to="|/usr/lib/mailman/mail/mailman post everyon e",
> ctladdr=<everyone at management.bu.edu> (8/0), delay=00:00:00,
> xdelay=00:00:00, mailer=prog, pri=32342 , dsn=2.0.0, stat=Sent
> 
>  
You aren't looking at the complete picture in the sendmail logs here.

You should have:

1. The incoming message to the list---I assume that your first log
message is this.
2. Transmission by sendmail to the Mailman post address.  Both your
second and third log entries shown above appear to be this, but for
two different messages.   

Note the m3EJJgII032663: identifier in your first two messages.  These
match, so are the same message.

When Mailman sends outgoing mail, you should see messages with
from=<everyone-bounces>
Pick up the identifier on that message and find log entries that match
it.  Here is a ferinstane of a message to a yahoo.com lister that is
being deferred by yahoo.  


1.  Mailman sends message to sendmail for delivery to yahoo.com

Apr 16 10:30:52 julie sendmail[14680]: [ID 801593 mail.info] m3GGR9as014680: fro
m=<mercedes-bounces at mercedeslist.com>, size=15494, class=-30, nrcpts=1, msgid=<mailman.106.1208363033.5334.mercedes at mercedeslist.com>, proto=ESMTP, daemon=MTA-v
4, relay=localhost [127.0.0.1]

2. First attempt to deliver:

Apr 16 10:34:38 julie sendmail[15894]: [ID 801593 mail.info] m3GGR9as014680: to=<listmember at yahoo.com>, delay=00:03:46, xdelay=00:03:46, mailer=esmtp, pri=189494, relay=g.mx.mail.yahoo.com. [209.191.88.239], dsn=4.0.0, stat=Deferred 

2. Second attempt to deliver:

Apr 16 11:18:26 julie sendmail[19203]: [ID 801593 mail.info] m3GGR9as014680: to=<listmember at yahoo.com>, delay=00:47:34, xdelay=00:00:00,mailer=esmtp, pri=279494, relay=b.mx.mail.yahoo.com., dsn=4.0.0, stat=Deferred

3. Nth attempt to deliver:

Apr 16 13:17:51 julie sendmail[27648]: [ID 801593 mail.info] m3GGR9as014680: to=<listmember at yahoo.com>, delay=02:46:59, xdelay=00:00:00,mailer=esmtp, pri=459494, relay=b.mx.mail.yahoo.com., dsn=4.0.0, stat=Deferred

Note that what keys these messages together is the ident string
m3GGR9as014680:

You'll note that the last delay is delay=02:46:59

This is a yahoo.com problem which we can't solve at the sending end.
Obviously, the listmember won't get the mail message until yahoo
agrees to accept it.  

I've cited a "problem delivery" that I am working at this end and
trying to get yahoo.com to do something about.  Look for stat=Deferred
in your system.  In any event you need to examine the outgoing mail
messages, as well as the incoming.  There are several hundred log
lines between these attempts, so you will have to search on the ident
string to find the affected messages.

Hank