[Mailman-Users] troubleshooting out queue backlog

[Kevin Bowen]

>Is sendmail just passing things off to your hosted smtp provider (eg
using the hosted smtp provider as a "smart host")

Yes, smart host. I don't see any rejections in sendmail's logs though. I'm
told that this machine has been exempted from any throttling at the smtp
provider end.

Kevin Bowen
kevin.t.bowen at gmail.com <kevin at ucsd.edu>


On Thu, Sep 5, 2019 at 2:39 PM Robert Heller <heller at deepsoft.com> wrote:

> At Thu, 5 Sep 2019 14:16:31 -0700 Kevin Bowen <kevin.t.bowen at gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
> >
> >
> > > Do you have SPF records and DKIM signing set up?
> >
> > I believe so - we're nowadays using a hosted smtp provider (proofpoint),
> > and mail from mailman shows an SPF "pass" in my mail client. I think if
> > that were the issue it would be affecting all outgoing mail from our
> > domain, but this appears to be affecting only mailman
>
> Question: if you are using a hosted smtp provider, then what is Sendmail
> doing? Is sendmail just passing things off to your hosted smtp provider (eg
> using the hosted smtp provider as a "smart host") or is Sendmail actually
> trying to deliver mail directly?  I would expect it to be the former, but
> check Sendmail's logs to be sure Sendmail is not doing something wrong.
> It is
> also possible that your hosted smtp provider changed something and you
> need to
> update Sendmail's configuration to match.  Your symptions suggest that
> Sendmail is having trouble sending mail (eg facing rejection or other
> problems).
>
> One of the possible config issues might be that your hosted smtp provider
> is
> imposing limits on the number of messages per connection or the number of
> connections per hour, etc.  You might need to update various *mailman*
> config
> options if that is the case.  Again the place to look is Sendmail's logs.
>
> I am presuming that non-mailman outgoing mail from your is originating from
> your hosted smtp provider (your users are properly connecting to the hosted
> smtp provider directly to send mail). You probably need to make sure
> mailman/sendmail are doing things correctly as well.
>
> >
> > >And mailman 2.1.9 is a really old version...
> >
> > I know. It's a legacy system I inherited.
> >
> > Kevin Bowen
> > kevin.t.bowen at gmail.com <kevin at ucsd.edu>
> >
> >
> > On Thu, Sep 5, 2019 at 2:01 PM Robert Heller <heller at deepsoft.com>
> wrote:
> >
> > > At Thu, 5 Sep 2019 13:53:26 -0700 Kevin Bowen <kevin.t.bowen at gmail.com
> >
> > > wrote:
> > >
> > > >
> > > > Hello,
> > > > This morning my mailman instance (2.1.9) was not delivering any mail
> -
> > > mail
> > > > was going into it but not going out. Restarting mailman and sendmail
> > > caused
> > > > mail to start flowing again, but several hours later there still
> appears
> > > to
> > > > be a backlog of several thousand files in /var/spool/mailman/out -
> > > they're
> > > > draining, but only very slowly, with some of them dating back to this
> > > > morning, around the time of the restart, and mail delivery appears
> > > delayed.
> > > > I'm not sure if it just needs more time to drain the queue, or if
> > > something
> > > > is stuck somewhere that needs to be removed - I don't see anything
> > > relevant
> > > > logged, but I'm not sure if I'm looking in the right place or what I
> > > should
> > > > be looking for. Can anyone give me any pointers to what i should be
> > > looking
> > > > at to troubleshoot this?
> > >
> > > Look at Sendmail's logs.  My *guess* is that someone is greylisting (or
> > > even
> > > blacklisting) your domain or host.
> > >
> > > Do you have SPF records and DKIM signing set up?
> > >
> > > And mailman 2.1.9 is a really old version...
> > >
> > > >
> > > >
> > > > Kevin Bowen
> > > > kevin.t.bowen at gmail.com <kevin at ucsd.edu>
> > > > ------------------------------------------------------
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> > > >
> > > >
> > >
> > >
> > > --
> > > Robert Heller             -- 978-544-6933
> > > Deepwoods Software        -- Custom Software Services
> > > http://www.deepsoft.com/  -- Linux Administration Services
> > > heller at deepsoft.com       -- Webhosting Services
> > >
> > >
> >
> >
>
>
> --
> Robert Heller             -- 978-544-6933
> Deepwoods Software        -- Custom Software Services
> http://www.deepsoft.com/  -- Linux Administration Services
> heller at deepsoft.com       -- Webhosting Services
>
>