[Mailman-Users] Test messages

[Steff Watkins]

> -----Original Message-----
> From: mailman-users-bounces+s.watkins=nhm.ac.uk at python.org 
> [mailto:mailman-users-bounces+s.watkins=nhm.ac.uk at python.org] 
> On Behalf Of Malcolm Austen

> I habitually configure lists with spam filter entries of the form:
> 
>       ^Subject:.*test.*
> 
> Other entries contain the words 'spam', 'virus' and 'digest'. 
> Then, if you only want to test the process to the list, all 
> you need do is put 'test'  
> into the subject line.
> 
> You could, of course, apply emergency moderation for the 
> duration of the test!
> 
> I'm sure there are other options (I don't have back-end shell 
> access to my
> lists) that involve stopping the outgoing mail and archive handlers.
> 
> = Malcolm.

I'm not too sure how useful this would be for testing "end-to-end"
throughput. When I was a little green about the gills (or greener than I
am now) wrt. Mailman I had a problem with an intermittently
"unresponsive" list. I looked at most things I could think of but
couldn't find the problem.

Eventually the penny dropped and I "realised" that those pesky 'runner'
processes had something to do with something in particular the Incoming
and Outgoing runner. Sure enough my process list showed that the
Incoming runner was there but the Outgoing runner would "die". (I fixed
that issue, it was something to do with directory ownerships). End
result, email came into the list and then just sat there.

Anyway, if you had a spam rule then surely that'd be great for testing
the message coming into the list at which point it'd be blocked (as
spam) but it wouldn't test whether the message would be mailed
out/forwarded to the list members.

I'm showing a bit of interest in this request as I'd like to know if
there is a way of doing just this, sending a test email to an
established list that only list admin and/or myself would recive to
check the list is running fine.

One thought/idea I've had is to have a "test" list which has only my
work email address, an offsite email address and maybe one or two of my
colleagues (for verification purposes), lock it right down so that only
the members can use it, add the "Me too" tag so that we'd receive any
emails we sent to the list and use that to check that the mailman
service is functional. Does that sound a valid way of doing it, too much
effort FWIW or missing the point as it wouldn't test a particular list
just the mailman service?

Regards,
Steff
 ---------------
Steff Watkins				Natural History Museum, Cromwell
Road, London, SW7 5BD
Systems programmer			Email: s.watkins at nhm.ac.uk 
Systems Team				Phone: +44 (0)20 7942 6000 opt 2
========
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