[Mailman-Users] bounce message w/no discernable addresses

[Geoff Shang]

On Fri, 27 Aug 2010, Christopher Adams wrote:

> Aug 27 09:31:08 2010 (14241) libs-or: bounce message w/no discernable
> addresses: <4B77CBB77F52BF41BEE2C397760565BD0885365C at xxx.xxx.xxx.xx.local>
> Aug 27 09:31:08 2010 (14241) libs-or: forwarding unrecognized, message-id:
> <4B77CBB77F52BF41BEE2C397760565BD0885365C at xxx.xxx.xxx.xx.local>

I'm guessing this means that a message has been received by the bounce 
address for a list, but the bounce processing can't figure out what it is. 
This would be for one of three reasons IMHO:

1.  It's an actual bounce, but Mailman doesn't recognise the bounce format 
and can't figure out which address(s) bounced.  Mailman is regularly 
updated with code to support more bounce formats, but there's probably 
some out there that it still doesn't know.

2.  It's spam sent directly to the bounce address.

3.  It's a message from an actual list member that has been sent to the 
bounce address, instead of the list itself or the owner address.  Not sure 
exactly why but I've seen this a number of times.

If your list is configured to have unrecognised bounce messages forwarded 
to the list owner, you should be seeing copies of these messages.  In my 
opinion, this is a good option to have turned on unless you're seeing a 
lot of these.

IMHO, the log fragment suggests that this option is actually on, so 
presumably you (or the list owner if it's not you) have already seen 
whatever this is.

If you really want to know what it is, you should be able to find the 
relevant message ID in the mail server logs.

Geoff.