all mail bounced???

[BGSWebDesign]

DW,

Have you heard of this, I just setup the new dedicated server, I'm looking at the bounced mail account, and I find over 12,000 bounces, every single message that was 'sent out' last night at 4am looks like this:
---------------

Code: [Select]


This is a delivery status notification from server.mydomain.com,
running the Courier mail server, version 0.51.0.

The original message was received on Wed, 23 May 2007 04:22:06 -0400
from localhost ([::ffff:xxx.xx.xx.xxx])

---------------------------------------------------------------------------

                           UNDELIVERABLE MAIL

Your message to the following recipients cannot be delivered:

-------------------

Do you have any idea what is going on here?  I'm not sure any of this went out, and I don't know why... the name servers were in flux though, I'm sure they're setup now, but may not have been last night... still, no errors from LMP, and as I said before, I had a lot of files in the 'ATTACH' folder with Zero length, no stats, nothing there...

Any ideas?

[DW]

Brett,

Is there an error message that might be given just after the section you quoted?

Regards

[BGSWebDesign]

DW,

Is there an error message that might be given just after the section you quoted?

No, I've been examining them, I just finished removing over 12,000 messages, it looks like a ton of them were 'message delayed' messages from the mail servers, here is one of the messages - does this mean anything to you?

Your message has been enqueued and undeliverable for 24 hours
to the following recipients:

Here's another one - this one is 'deferred' (I've changed the email address for privacy reasons, but it looked like a valid/deliverable address):

  ----- The following addresses had permanent fatal errors -----
<validuser@uottawa.ca>
    (reason: Deferred)

Any idea why these are being deferred/delayed?  Is it because the reverse DNS is not setup properly or propagated through - that's what they are telling me at the host...

[DW]

I usually wait for DNS to take effect so I'm not sure.  I also am fairly unfamiliar with Courier server software.  What I would do next is check the maillog (locate maillog) for one or more of the failing addresses to try to see if there is another error message.

cat /path/to/maillog | grep email@example.com

Then try to correlate something like the queue #, delivery #, etc. to find the final status message...

Regards

[BGSWebDesign]

Hi DW,

I usually wait for DNS to take effect so I'm not sure.  I also am fairly unfamiliar with Courier server software.

Courier is the mail MTA, apparently a very highly rated one too.

What I would do next is check the maillog (locate maillog) for one or more of the failing addresses to try to see if there is another error message.
cat /path/to/maillog | grep email@example.com
Then try to correlate something like the queue #, delivery #, etc. to find the final status message...

Thanks, I did that and found this:

Code: [Select]


May 24 12:28:38 server courieresmtp: id=00021254.4655BC2A.0000526B,from=<lmbounc
e@mydomain.com>,addr=<xxxxx_xxx@yahoo.com>,size=7443,status: success


So apparently these emails that were errors or bounces, were eventually delivered...  I'll keep my eye on it and see what I find.

[mike2]

Thanks, I did that and found this:

Code: [Select]


May 24 12:28:38 server courieresmtp: id=00021254.4655BC2A.0000526B,from=<lmbounc
e@mydomain.com>,addr=<xxxxx_xxx@yahoo.com>,size=7443,status: success


I think that line simply means courier accepted the message not delivered it to yahoo...   normally when actually delivered it shows the receiving server... ie.. smtp1.yahoo.com

Just a thought but I also know nothing or haven't even heard of couriersmtp...  but normally success does mean delivered where as "accepted" means well accepted...

[DW]

I think the 'success' message could indicate the final remote delivery status.

I have heard of courier - I think it's one of the first MTAs... and is still used for POP?? Not sure...

There should be some options to turn off the delivery warning messages.  Otherwise a line would need to be added to bounce.cgi to prevent false bounces.

Check this out:
http://www.courier-mta.org/courier.html

warntime

    warntime specifies an amount of time in the same format as queuetime. If a message still has not been delivered after this period of time, Courier sends a warning message (a "delayed" Delivery Status Notification) to the sender. If warntime is missing, Courier sets warntime to four hours.

Yahoo has rate-limiting which could easily push messages past the default 4-hour mark.

CONFIGURATION FILES

Courier uses several configuration files which are located in /etc/courier.

After changing the configuration you will probably need to restart the service.  Maybe:

Code: [Select]

service courier restart
or

Code: [Select]

/etc/rc.d/notsure.../courier restart
Good luck.

Regards

[BGSWebDesign]

DW,

I have heard of courier - I think it's one of the first MTAs... and is still used for POP?? Not sure...

No, from what I gather it's rather new, and supposedly better/faster than qmail and exim.

There should be some options to turn off the delivery warning messages. Otherwise a line would need to be added to bounce.cgi to prevent false bounces.

You are right... I see 100's of 'Delayed Mail' messages.    Can you please tell me the line to add to bounce.cgi and where to add it?   Does bounce.cgi already check for specific 'strings'?   Perhaps you could add something to the config to handle this?  I need configurable strings, or something similar?

Let me know...

[DW]

Configurable strings are under consideration.  Some examples of lines that can be entered in bounce.cgi are around the forum... let's see...  here

For now I highly recommend disabling the warning messages by modifying your MTA config file.

Regards

[BGSWebDesign]

DW,

For now I highly recommend disabling the warning messages by modifying your MTA config file.

Which warnings - all of them, or only certain ones?  

Are you saying that any type of warning will trigger bounce.cgi to look at that as a bounced message and remove that user?

[DW]

Yes, that's right :shock: - try to remove all warnings.