[Mailman-Users] troubleshooting out queue backlog

[Robert Heller]

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
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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