[Mailman-Users] spam coming through a moderated list after a shunt

[Mark Sapiro]

On 11/22/15 11:43 AM, Fil wrote:
> 
> Secondary question: how comes there can be a memory exception on trying
> to load spip-ann/extend.py (which is non-existent).


This is a bit of a puzzle. Whenever a MailList object is instantiated
(Mailman.MailList.MailList.__init__) there is an attempt to execfile the
list's extend.py whether or not it exists. ENOENT (non-existent file) is
ignored and other errors log the 'IOError reading list extension:'
message, but this exception is caught and other than the logging, is
ignored. I think that log message actually occurred early in the
processing of the message.

The error that actually caused the shunting was the

Uncaught runner exception: [Errno 12] Cannot allocate memory:
'/var/local/mailman/qfiles/virgin'

log message that occurred when trying to queue the rejection notice.

As to why these errors occurred, this is at the interface between Python
and the OS and there was apparently some transient memory issue on the
server that lasted for a bit of time since quite a bit of processing
occurred between instantiating the list and queueing the rejection
notice, but unless there is some clue in other system logs, we don't
know what the issue was.

I will look into the issue of handler skipping with shunted/unshunted
messages and see about making that more robust.

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