[Mailman-Users] OutgoingRunner processes hanging

[Mark Sapiro]

On 11/14/19 4:05 PM, Kevin Bowen wrote:
> Hello,
> Occasionally my mailman instance (2.1.9) gets into a weird state where one
> or more of its OutgoingRunner processes appears to hang (usually on a large
> email with a large number of recipients), causing a backlog of all other
> mail on that process's "shard" (or whatever the terminology is for how
> mailman divides up mail between runners based on hash).


FYI, "slice" is the term we use.


> When it gets into
> this state, doing a mailman restart doesn't manage to successfully kill the
> "hung" process - it stays around after the restart (along with the
> mailmanctl instance that started it). Doing a tcpdump on the process
> usually shows that it's still sending data, but at a trickle (or sometimes
> not). Any ideas what could cause this, or how to resolve it?


OutgoingRunner is delivering the message it's working on to the
recipient list. If the process is still actually delivering to the
outgoing MTA, but slowly, this is an issue between Mailman and the MTA.

One thing you can do is set up a separate port in the MTA for delivery
only from Mailman and do little or no checking on that port. For example
with Postfix, this is what we have in master.cf on mail.python.org

--------------------------------------------------------
# This is where mailman is injecting to (no filtering!)
127.0.0.1:8027
          inet  n       -       -       -        -      smtpd
        -o smtpd_authorized_xforward_hosts=127.0.0.0/8
        -o mynetworks=127.0.0.0/8
        -o smtpd_recipient_restrictions=permit_mynetworks,reject
        -o smtpd_client_restrictions=
        -o smtpd_helo_restrictions=
        -o smtpd_sender_restrictions=
        -o smtpd_data_restrictions=
#       -o smtpd_milters=inet:127.0.0.1:11332
        -o smtpd_milters=inet:127.0.0.1:8891
# inet:127.0.0.1:8891  == opendkim
# inet:127.0.0.1:11332 == rspamd
--------------------------------------------------------

Some other hints can be found by searching the FAQ at
<https://wiki.list.org/> for 'performance'

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