[Mailman-Users] No mail and no posts from mailman

[Bob McClure Jr]

On Wed, Feb 28, 2007 at 07:32:49AM -0800, Mark Sapiro wrote:
> Bob McClure Jr wrote:
> >
> >1) # ps auxww| grep mailmanctl |grep -v grep
> >mailman   7087  0.0  0.3  13048  1672 ?        Ss    2006   0:00 /usr/bin/python /usr/lib/mailman/bin/mailmanctl -s -q start
> ># ps auxww | egrep 'p[y]thon'
> >mailman   7087  0.0  0.3  13048  1672 ?        Ss    2006   0:00 /usr/bin/python /usr/lib/mailman/bin/mailmanctl -s -q start
> >mailman   7097  0.0  0.5  12912  2508 ?        S     2006   0:00 /usr/bin/python /usr/lib/mailman/bin/qrunner --runner=RetryRunner:0:1 -s
> 
> 
> Seven of eight qrunner processes are missing. Please reread FAQ 3.14,
> sec 1, and let us know how to emphasize that all eight qrunners should
> be running.

I wondered about that, but when I ran "mailmanctl status", it didn't
report anything amiss, so I didn't know what to think.  Now I know
that there are eight of those suckers to account for.

> >6) Locks:
> >
> ># ls -l ~mailman/locks
> >ls: /usr/lib/mailman/locks: No such file or directory
> 
> 
> I think in FC4 you'll find them in /var/locks/mailman.

/var/lock/mailman, actually.  Thanks for the clue.

> >7) Logs:  The only things in the logs are the subscriptions:
> >
> >[root at bubba mailman]# cat qrunner
> >Feb 25 04:08:42 2007 (7087) Master watcher caught SIGHUP.  Re-opening log files.
> >Feb 25 04:08:44 2007 (7097) RetryRunner qrunner caught SIGHUP.  Reopening logs.
> >[root at bubba mailman]# cat subscribe
> >Feb 26 17:42:35 2007 (10359) foobarlist: new bob at bobcatos.com, admin mass sub
> >Feb 26 17:42:35 2007 (10359) foobarlist: new otherperson at domain.com, admin mass sub
> >
> >   The only thing in error is the result of running mailmanctl with no
> >   arguments.  /var/log/mailman/smtp is zero-length.
> 
> 
> Your logs rotate. (The default for Fedora is weekly for 4 generations I
> think.) Check the old qrunner.[1234] and error.[1234] logs to see if
> there is info there as to why the qrunners died.

There are no clues in there, so they must have died over a month ago.
Do I need to put in a cron-driven monitor to check up on the qrunners
or is there a more sophisticated way to do that?

> Meanwhile, manually do 'bin/mailmanctl stop' and 'bin/mailmanctl
> start'. Don't do just a restart.

Excellent!  It's up and has flushed all the messages it had queued.
Thank you, sir.

> >8) Qfiles: # ls -l ~mailman/qfiles
> >ls: /usr/lib/mailman/qfiles: No such file or directory
> ># locate qfiles
> >/usr/lib/mailman/bin/show_qfiles
> 
> 
> I think they're in /var/spool/mailman, and you'll find all your
> messages in the 'in' queue and the 'virgin' queue and they will be
> sent when Mailman's qrunners are running again.

Ah, another great clue.  Never thought of looking there, though it's
perfectly logical.

> >   Okay, with this and (6), I'm wondering if some directories are
> >   missing.  But if so, why is (or was) the other list functioning,
> >   and why is there nothing in the logs about it?
> 
> 
> They're not missing. You just aren't looking in the right places. And
> the log entries have rotated to older logs or oblivion.

Yep.

> >What clues am I missing?
> 
> 
> See above.

Excellent!  Thank you again.

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

Cheers,
-- 
Bob McClure, Jr.             Bobcat Open Systems, Inc.
bob at bobcatos.com             http://www.bobcatos.com
Jesus looked at them and said, "With man this is impossible, but with
God all things are possible."  Matthew 19:26 (NIV)