sendmail:bad header hangs whole queue

[Greg Barnes]

Sendmail 8.9.3 (PHNE_24419)/8.9.3

A message with a mal-formed address (e.g. containing ESC chars or just a typo) hangs the running of the mail queue. This eventually times out, but at the next attempt to sweep the queue it hangs again at the same message. Stopping sendmail and deleting the message (in this case, an UNDELIVERABLE notification of no consequence) allows the rest of the queue to be delivered normally and rapidly.

Is this normal RFC822 behavior?

[someone_4]

Can you re-try to resend the message and post the output of the command
mailq
And also post up what your /var/adm/syslog/mail.log says about that email. You can do a grep for the username it is comming from or the email tag that would look something like AAA18224 and match what it shows on your mailq out put.

~ Richard

[Greg Barnes]

Richard,

Thanks for looking at this for us. There were about 40-50 lines referring to timeouts that I didn't include, just for the sake of brevity. The first line, trying to send to the Salvation Army, was the message that always hung everything behind it.

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

From mail.log:
Jun 14 16:52:45 mgsys19 sendmail[20830]: QAA20830: from=y%USS%SAHUB@salvationarmy.org>, size=2107, class=0, pri=32107, nrcpts=1, msgid=<
OF8E201144.C3267BFC-N85256BD8.006FFB2A@salvationarmy.org>, proto=ESMTP, relay=numbers.sarmy.org [194.128.94.35]
Jun 14 17:02:45 mgsys19 sendmail[20832]: QAA20830: timeout waiting for input fro
m mx1.ourdomain.net. during client MAIL
Jun 14 17:02:45 mgsys19 sendmail[20832]: QAA20830: to=,
delay=00:10:01, xdelay=00:10:00, mailer=esmtp, relay=mx1.ourdomain.net. [12.5
.1.2], stat=Deferred: Connection reset by mx1.ourdomain.net.
Jun 14 17:24:31 mgsys19 sendmail[24994]: QAA20830: to=,
delay=00:31:47, xdelay=00:00:00, mailer=esmtp, relay=mx1.ourdomain.net., stat
=Deferred: Connection reset by mx1.ourdomain.net.
Jun 14 17:55:57 mgsys19 sendmail[29084]: QAA20830: to=,
delay=01:03:13, xdelay=00:00:00, mailer=esmtp, relay=mx1.ourdomain.net., stat
=Deferred: Connection reset by mx1.ourdomain.net.

[someone_4]

Hello,
I have a few questions.

Are hooked up to the internet and are you using dns?

What is your output if you do
nslookup salvationarmy.org.

Are you able to send email to anywhere else on the intenet? aol.com yahoo.com hotmail.com.
try
nslookup aol.com
nslookup yahoo.com
nslookup hotmail.com


Last but not leat try to do the following command.

echo test | sendmail -v user@salvationarmy.org

with user@salvationarmy.org being the full email address you are trying to send an email to.

Post your results.
Let thanks

~ Richard

[Greg Barnes]

Yes, this system is connected to the Internet. In fact, it's our DNS server in the DMZ.
>What is your output if you do nslookup >salvationarmy.org?
# nslookup salvationarmy.org
Name Server: ns1.ourdomain.net
Address: xxx.xxx.40.41
Trying DNS
looking up FILES
*** No address information is available for "salvationarmy.org"

However, an nslookup on www.salvationarmy.org returns the correct address immediately. I know, I know, it's not the same with the "www".

>Are you able to send email to anywhere else >on the intenet?

Yes, with no problem. Name resolution shouldn't cause the queue to hang.

>Last but not least try to do the following >command.
>
>echo test | sendmail -v user@salvationarmy.org

Richard, perhaps my question isn't clear. Sendmail is running the queue every 30 minutes. Each time it moved very quickly through the stacked-up messages until it got to this one, whereupon all mail delivery hung. I would have expected something to time out, but it apparently doesn't. Where in sendmail.cf should/can I set an appropriate timeout for this trouble?

[Sanjay_6]

Hi Greg,

Maybe this link can help,

http://support1.itrc.hp.com/service/cki/docDisplay.do?docLocale=en_US&docId=200000024603118

worth a try.

Hope this helps.

Regds