[FLORA.org HelpDesk] MAJORDOMO ABORT - looking for more details, and some help tracking it down.

[Russell McOrmond]

Reference to thread Krishna started in the past:
http://www.flora.org/flora/help/flora-admin-help/all?subject=MAJORDOMO+ABORT


I was speaking to Peter Blanchard (Planetfriendly.net) and he mentioned
he saw this error as well. He thought it was an error that happened if he
sent a new message into his list while an existing message was not
processed. He seemed to believe that sending the second message caused
the first to abort (I don't know exactly what data made him think that).

When I look up the error I get sent to other articles suggesting this
may have to do with too many Sendmail processes running, or load average.

We have had a few times when the load on calcutta.flora.ca was quite
high. What I don't know is how to ensure that messages get queued
regardless of the load average. It is appropriate for sendmail to refuse
new connections for external mail when the load average is high, but not
appropriate for it to ever toss a message being sent to it from the
command line interface.

Sendmail now has a 'submit' configuration option and a general one.
Command line sending is set by the 'submit' config, so it is possible to
set options that apply to submitting but not the sendmail that is waiting
for external mail.


Looking up the Majordomo logs it seems to be happening fairly often, so
this is an error that must be fixed. Doing a "grep -c" of the FLORA.org
Majordomo logs shows that it has happened 7 times since the first of this
month.

Majordomo log:

Log.1:Aug 03 17:29:48 flora.org resend[2182] {leftbio} ABORT Mailer
/usr/lib/sendmail -oi -oee -fowner-***@flora.org leftbio-outgoing,
exited unexpectedly with error 65535

Log.1:Aug 04 16:06:42 flora.org resend[27193] {re-cycles-vols} ABORT
Mailer /usr/lib/sendmail -oi -oee -fowner-re-cycles-***@flora.org
re-cycles-vols-outgoing exited unexpectedly with error 0

Log.1:Aug 04 20:00:53 flora.org resend[31837] {nowar-nomail} ABORT Mailer
/usr/lib/sendmail -oi -oee -fowner-nowar-***@flora.org
nowar-post,nobody exited unexpectedly with error 0

Log.1:Aug 05 11:09:01 flora.org resend[15534] {firstjustice-nomail} ABORT
Mailer /usr/lib/sendmail -oi -oee -fowner-firstjustice-***@flora.org
firstjustice-post,nobody exited unexpectedly with error 0

Log.1:Aug 05 15:25:44 flora.org resend[21645] {leftbio} ABORT Mailer
/usr/lib/sendmail -oi -oee -fowner-***@flora.org leftbio-outgoing,
exited unexpectedly with error 0

Log.1:Aug 05 22:16:57 flora.org resend[30523] {lso-org} ABORT Mailer
/usr/lib/sendmail -oi -oee -fowner-lso-***@flora.org
lso-org-outgoing,nobody exited unexpectedly with error 65535

Log.1:Aug 07 17:21:34 flora.org resend[26356] {cfsc} ABORT Mailer
/usr/lib/sendmail -oi -oee -fowner-***@flora.org cfsc-outgoing,nobody
exited unexpectedly with error 0

I looked up this last one and sendmail logs suggest the message was
delivered, or at least that Sendmail was in the process of delivering
existing messages to this same forum.

Aug 05 22:16:57 flora.org resend[30523] {lso-org} ABORT Mailer
/usr/lib/sendmail -oi -oee -fowner-lso-***@flora.org
lso-org-outgoing,nobody exited unexpectedly with error 65535

This message bounced to the list owners. The sendmail logs don't
indicate anything more about why, just that it did.

Any thoughts from any other Majordomo/Sendmail administrators would be
helpful.

limiting the number of sendmail processes invoked by majordomo/resend
http://www.greatcircle.com/lists/majordomo-users/mhonarc/majordomo-users.199705/msg00353.html

In my case I don't want to abort, but ensure that Sendmail queues the
message. My configuration suggests to me that there is no limit, which is
what I want.

[***@calcutta log]# grep MaxDaemonChildren /etc/mail/*
/etc/mail/sendmail.cf:#O MaxDaemonChildren=0
/etc/mail/sendmail.cf.bak:#O MaxDaemonChildren=0
/etc/mail/submit.cf:#O MaxDaemonChildren=0
/etc/mail/submit.cf.bak:#O MaxDaemonChildren=0

[Adam H. Kerman]

Russell, do you have bulk_mailer installed?
ftp://cs.utk.edu/pub/moore/bulk_mailer/ This pre-processes messages from
Majordomo and hands them off to sendmail so that they are grouped by the MX on
the receiving end. It's one sendmail process per receiving host rather than per
message, saving system and internetwork resources.

Beyond that, I know that the question gets asked frequently on the Majordomo
users mailing list; I would review the archives at greatcircle.com for the
answer.

sendmail gives me a headache.
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Message part of the FLORA.org HelpDesk: http://www.flora.org/flora/help/

[Russell McOrmond]

Post by Adam H. Kerman
Russell, do you have bulk_mailer installed?
ftp://cs.utk.edu/pub/moore/bulk_mailer/

When I looked at it initially it looked like it would increase resource
usage, not decrease it. It has been important thus far that a given
message to a given mailing list only caused a single Sendmail to start.
For some of the larger lists if it started a new sendmail per unique MX
direction then this could bring the machine down pretty quickly.

Post by Adam H. Kerman
Beyond that, I know that the question gets asked frequently on the
Majordomo users mailing list; I would review the archives at
greatcircle.com for the answer.

I tried to find an answer there, but didn't find anything.

Post by Adam H. Kerman
sendmail gives me a headache.

I've debated about switching to Exim in the past, but just don't have
the time to figure things out. My TODO list is quite huge, and at this
point I have given up on most technical projects due to lack of time.

[Adam H. Kerman]

Post by Russell McOrmond

Post by Adam H. Kerman
Beyond that, I know that the question gets asked frequently on the
Majordomo users mailing list; I would review the archives at
greatcircle.com for the answer.

I tried to find an answer there, but didn't find anything.

Then post the question to majordomo-***@greatcircle.com

It's a Majordomo 2 list these days. You don't have to zubscribe as almost
everyone Cc's and the list is open to posting from nonsubscribers.

Post by Russell McOrmond

Post by Adam H. Kerman
sendmail gives me a headache.

I've debated about switching to Exim in the past . . .

There's no guarantee that another mail transport agents will suck less.
-
Message part of the FLORA.org HelpDesk: http://www.flora.org/flora/help/