[Mailman-Users] list address in From: line post message to closed list

[Steve Lindemann]

Dragon wrote:
> Steve Lindemann sent the message below at 14:43 4/3/2008:
>> Dragon wrote:
>>> Steve Lindemann sent the message below at 12:18 4/3/2008:
>>>> The problem - when the list email address is (spoofed) in the From: line
>>>> (as well as being on the To: line) the message posts to the list.  The
>>>> ability to post to the list is supposed to be restricted to only list
>>>> members.  The list address is not in the list of list members.
>>>>
>>>> Is this normal?  I checked the config and there did see anything to
>>>> allow this behavior there.  Is the list email address automatically
>>>> considered to be a member of the list?  I can always block it in
>>>> "privacy options->sender filters", but should that even be necessary?  Help!
>>> ---------------- End original message. ---------------------
>>> This seemed rather strange to me too so I decided to test it on my 
>>> server. I have 2.1.10b3 installed from source on a Redhat machine. 
>>> My list is configured for posts from non-members to be discarded.
>>> I sent a message to one of my lists using the list address in the 
>>> From: header. The message was discarded as I expected it would be 
>>> and I confirmed this by an entry in the vette log.
>>> So it works on my installation as I expect it would. The question 
>>> now is, what is the difference between my source install and your 
>>> installation. Are you using a cPanel or Plesk version, or a version 
>>> installed from somebody else's package maybe through yum or something similar?
>>> Are you certain that the message was distributed via the list?
>>> Is it in the list archive?
>>> Can you match the message ID to one in the post log?
>>> If you can see it in the archive and post log then it did get 
>>> processed through mailman. If not, perhaps it was BCC'ed to your 
>>> address or there is something else going on with your MTA.
>>> Dragon
>> I'm running version 2.1.9, installed from a tarball on a Dell server 
>> running CentOS 5.  I administer from the command line and thru the 
>> web interface.  It's a pretty basic install.
> 
> Now when you say it's from a tarball, is it a binary install or did 
> you compile it (configure, make, make install, etc.)?
> 
> Where did you obtain this version?
> 
> If it isn't from one of the links on the page linked below, it may 
> have been altered in some way by somebody else to conform to some 
> distribution specific criteria.
> 
> http://www.gnu.org/software/mailman/mailman.html
> 
> 
>> I went thru the logs and saw the message hit our email server 
>> (originally from 5850-260-1-62.dialup.samtel.ru), it gets passed to 
>> mailman and I see the  post entry showing it's arrival into mailman 
>> then then smtp entry showing it's delivery back to the email 
>> server.  I confirmed the delivery to the 144 recipients (fortunately 
>> this is a small list) in the mail log.  I am one of the recipients 
>> on this list, but in my case spamassassin flagged the message and it 
>> gets filtered away.
>>
>> I just widened my search thru the mailman logs and noticed some 
>> other lists (in the vette log) holding messages for moderation with 
>> the list email in the From: line.  So it does appear to be something 
>> in this specific list that's misconfigured.  I'm off to poke around 
>> the config again but I'd be very interested in any suggestions about 
>> what I might be looking for!?  My first pass thru the config I was 
>> looking for something that would allow this to happen and didn't see it.
> 
> If this is a stock install from the mailman source, I've pretty much 
> exhausted my ideas. The only settings I know that should affect the 
> ability to deliver an e-mail are:
> 
> accept_these_nonmembers
> generic_nonmember_action
> header_filter_rules
> 
> I've looked through all the other options and don't see anything 
> there that would possibly allow something through. The only other 
> thing I can think of is that this mail might have been held and 
> accidentally accepted or it might have been sent with an Approved: 
> header with the list or site password.
> 
> Dragon

acquired the software with:
wget 
http://openwebmail.org/openwebmail/download/release/openwebmail-2.52.tar.gz

followed by many wget's of required perl modules and such
and installed the lot.  I recall rounds of configure,make,make test,make 
install for the perl modules.  I don't recall doing that for the 
openwebmail, I do remember "./openwebmail-tool.pl --init" after some 
config file changes.

I'll check those specific settings.

If the message had been held I should have seen an entry for it in the 
vette log and there wasn't one.  I checked the message header for an 
Approved line and (fortunately) didn't find it.  I'd be very 
"disappointed" to find that password in a message header.

I'll keep poking at this end.  I'd love to hear any other ideas...
--
Steve