[Mailman-Users] Current stump (newbie)

[William D. Tallman]

On Mon, May 08, 2006 at 10:51:41AM -0500, Patrick Bogen wrote:
> On 5/8/06, William D. Tallman <wtallman at olypen.com> wrote:
<snip>

This is the point at which Mailman initiates a response.

> >May  7 20:25:31 mailhost sm-mta[4082]: k483PUSs004082:
> >from=<mailman-bounces at mailhost.locallan>, size=2772, class=-60,
> >nrcpts=1, msgid=<mailman.1.1147058729.3838.mailman at mailhost.locallan>,
> >proto=ESMTP, daemon=MTA, relay=localhost [127.0.0.1]
> >May  7 20:25:31 mailhost sm-mta[4084]: k483PUSs004082:
> >to=<wtallman at olypen.com>, delay=00:00:00, xdelay=00:00:00, mailer=relay,
> >pri=140772, relay=smtp.olypen.com. [208.200.248.8], dsn=5.1.1, stat=User
> >unknown
> >May  7 20:25:31 mailhost sm-mta[4084]: k483PUSs004082: k483PVSs004084:
> >DSN: User unknown
> Mailman has generated a response, and attempted to send it to
> wtallman at olypen.com, but it was rejected by the remote SMTP server.
> The SMTP server reported 'User unknown'. Check the logs on
> smtp.olypen.com, if you can, for more information about this.

Called Olypen, and it would seem that the smtp session must have gone
like such:

telnet smtp.olypen.com 25  //  Get okay.
HELO mailhost.locallan  // Get okay (250).
MAIL From: mailman-bounces at mailhost.locallan // User unknown?

The tech support guy said that 'mailman-bounces' is an  unauthenticated
User, or so he thought.  I'll know more later when the guy at the NOC
gets back to me.  Maybe it will be a case of getting Mailman
authenticated on their smtp server.  That sounds like the server will
only accept mail from subscribers, which makes sense.

-----------------------------
Addendum, just before sending this off:  The NOC guy just called back,
and said that indeed 'mailman-bounces' is unauthorized at their smtp
server.  After some discussion (very few of their subscribers run Linux,
although they themselves run RedHat on their servers), I discovered that
they are contemplating email list service as an addition to what they
already offer.

Such service would be industrial/commercial and cost several hundred
bucks a month, I suggested, and we agreed I wouldn't be paying that sort
of freight.  OTOH, as they really like OS/FSF software, it would be very
likely they would choose Mailman.  With that in mind, I said I'd be very
happy to share my experiences and what I learned if I could successfully
set up my server.

On that note, the guy said he would advocate opening their port 25 for
me, the decision to be made by the email sysadmin.  So we'll see what
happens.

OYAH (On Yet Another Hand...), if I could configure Mailman to use
'my_list' instead of 'mailman-bounces', all this would be resolved, as
'my_list' is an authenticated User; it's one of my mailbox addresses.

If that is possible, that's what I would do.  Hafta look at the source
code...  and I've never even looked at Python...  this oughta be fun!
----------------------------- 
> -- SNIP --
> 
> >That's the end of the grunner log file.  Note that no activity is
> >recorded for the time period of the maillog.
> The qrunners each, more or less, have their own logs. the main qrunner
> log only records what you see; when they started, when they failed,
> when they restarted.

Okay, that makes sense.  Didn't know what I should find there.
 
> >And no mail is sent back out, apparently, because none is received by
> >the list subscriber.
> See my comments above.
> 
> >Now, I've already demonstrated my abysmal ignorance of this stuff in
> >previous comments, but I'd sure like to get this running if I can.  Is
> >there enough information here to diagnose this situation?  If not, what
> >can I provide?
> Mailman *seems* to be working, but I might be missing something. If
> nothing else, I don't know that 'my_list at ...' should be sending to the
> mailman list.

Well, 'my_list@' is one of the email addresses I get with my
subscription to Olypen's services (5 with aDSL).  So Fetchmail gets mail
from that mailbox and sends it to Mailman.

fetchmailrc snippet:
         user 'my_list' there with password '******' is 'mailman' here

'mailman' is, of course, a user on this machine, so messages sent from
Fetchmail wind up in /var/spool/mail/mailman.  Apparently, Mailman likes
that just fine.

The deal breaker here would be if Olypen insists on establishing
mailman-bounces as a separate subscriber.  At that point, this entire
setup -> /dev/null.

Thanks for this response; it verified my suspicions and pointed me to
the presumed source of the problem: the ISP.

Thanks for reading,

Bill Tallman