Hello all, I have been recently seeing a bunch of "Mail forwarding Loop" messages in my Postfix mail log. After pouring over this stuff for several hours, I think I found the problem... Microsoft!
Seriously, here's the scoop: a user sends a message to the list, which gets properly distributed. Sometime later (I've seen a few hours to a few days), the exact message that went out of the list mysteriously comes back to the list, with the same FROM: (usually the list's admin address), and the same TO: address (the list posting address). Postfix catches the loop, as it sees it's "Delivered-To" line in there, and bounces the message back to the sender, which sometimes is the real sender, other times is the list bounce address. The sender gets the bounce, and thinks their message didn't go out, when it really did. I've seen at least three different mail servers that have caused this: a roadrunner server, xt1.xtlab.com, and some other one in Australia. The common thread is that they are all running Microsoft mail server software. One of the messages had a header line that indicated it came from some webmail server, so it's possible that the webmail server software itself is somehow buggered up, and sends out these messages when the user does something. If it is user interaction, that would explain the random delay I saw (up to 2 days on one message). Here's a sample header, with some comments: >From [EMAIL PROTECTED] Thu Jun 13 22:09:44 2002 Return-Path: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Delivered-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] <--- my separate test mailbox to collect this message Received: from mail8.nc.rr.com (fe8.southeast.rr.com [24.93.67.55]) by list.nlenet.net (Postfix) with ESMTP id 65DA9128 for <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>; Thu, 13 Jun 2002 22:09:44 -0400 (EDT) Received: from mail pickup service by mail8.nc.rr.com with Microsoft SMTPSVC; Thu, 13 Jun 2002 21:58:19 -0400 <--- HERE'S THE REMAILED MESSAGE GOING OUT! Received: from ncmx01.mgw.rr.com ([24.93.67.251]) by mail8.nc.rr.com with Microsoft SMTPSVC(5.5.1877.757.75); <-- Here's where the original message got delivered Wed, 12 Jun 2002 08:01:15 -0400 <--- NOTICE THE DATE CHANGE! Received: from list.nlenet.net (list.nlenet.net [208.178.159.75]) by ncmx01.mgw.rr.com (8.12.2/8.12.2) with ESMTP id g5CC1FbC010819; Wed, 12 Jun 2002 08:01:15 -0400 (EDT) Received: from list.nlenet.net (localhost.localdomain [127.0.0.1]) by list.nlenet.net (Postfix) with ESMTP id 0368EFE; Wed, 12 Jun 2002 08:01:11 -0400 (EDT) Delivered-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Received: from imo-r07.mx.aol.com (imo-r07.mx.aol.com [152.163.225.103]) by list.nlenet.net (Postfix) with ESMTP id 60E2EF8 for <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>; Wed, 12 Jun 2002 08:00:56 -0400 (EDT) Received: from [EMAIL PROTECTED] by imo-r07.mx.aol.com (mail_out_v32.5.) id 7.cb.23799993 (657) for <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>; Wed, 12 Jun 2002 08:00:50 -0400 (EDT) From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Message-ID: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Subject: Re: [CSC] surge protection To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] My solution (for now) was to insert procmail into the picture, scan the message for the "Delivered-To" the list address header, and if present, dump the message to the bit-bucket. Otherwise, the message gets passed on to Mailman. But the mail server software needs to be fixed! I'm sure others out there are going to see this same thing happening. I've seen it on a few different servers of my own, so I know it's not just one specific machine. Bob ------------------------------------------------------ Mailman-Users mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/mailman-users Mailman FAQ: http://www.python.org/cgi-bin/faqw-mm.py