[mlmmj] Cannot remove mail adress

[mlmmj] Cannot remove mail adress

[Christian Gleerup]

Hi mlmmj's,

I have a server that uses mlmmj, but now I have the problem, that some
email address cannot be deleted.

for instance, I have this problem with my own, but the applikation user
has repported that she had th eproblem several times, so people simply
can't unsubscribe!

see the following,

/$ sudo mlmmj-list -L /var/spool/mlmmj/nyhedsbrev/ | grep cromozon
cromozon@swn.nu
/$ sudo /usr/bin/mlmmj-unsub -L /var/spool/mlmmj/nyhedsbrev/ -a
cromozon@swn.nu -s
Changing to uid 65534, owner of /var/spool/mlmmj/nyhedsbrev/.
/$ sudo mlmmj-list -L /var/spool/mlmmj/nyhedsbrev/ | grep cromozon
cromozon@swn.nu

As you can see, the mail adress is not deleted after the unsub command,
but in most cases, it works, what can be wrong?

/Christian

Re: [mlmmj] Cannot remove mail adress

[Mads Martin Jørgensen]

On Sun, Sep 26, 2010 at 8:06 PM, Christian Gleerup
<christian.gleerup@swn.nu> wrote:
> I have a server that uses mlmmj, but now I have the problem, that some
> email address cannot be deleted.
>
> for instance, I have this problem with my own, but the applikation user
> has repported that she had th eproblem several times, so people simply
> can't unsubscribe!
>
> see the following,
>
> /$ sudo mlmmj-list -L /var/spool/mlmmj/nyhedsbrev/ | grep cromozon
> cromozon@swn.nu
> /$ sudo /usr/bin/mlmmj-unsub -L /var/spool/mlmmj/nyhedsbrev/ -a
> cromozon@swn.nu -s
> Changing to uid 65534, owner of /var/spool/mlmmj/nyhedsbrev/.
> /$ sudo mlmmj-list -L /var/spool/mlmmj/nyhedsbrev/ | grep cromozon
> cromozon@swn.nu
>
> As you can see, the mail adress is not deleted after the unsub command,
> but in most cases, it works, what can be wrong?

Have a look at the owner and permissions of the files - it looks to me as if the
one in question is owned by someone other than it should.

-- 
Mads Martin Joergensen, http://mmj.dk
"Why make things difficult, when it is possible to make them cryptic
 and totally illogical, with just a little bit more effort?"
                                 -- A. P. J.

Re: [mlmmj] Cannot remove mail adress

[Christian Gleerup]

  Hi Martin,

can you tell me where to look after the files?
I have tried too look around below /var/spool/mlmmj/nyhedsbrev/, but I 
can't find any adresses in there.


Den 9/26/2010 9:08 PM, Mads Martin Jørgensen skrev:
> On Sun, Sep 26, 2010 at 8:06 PM, Christian Gleerup
> <christian.gleerup@swn.nu>  wrote:
>> I have a server that uses mlmmj, but now I have the problem, that some
>> email address cannot be deleted.
>>
>> for instance, I have this problem with my own, but the applikation user
>> has repported that she had th eproblem several times, so people simply
>> can't unsubscribe!
>>
>> see the following,
>>
>> /$ sudo mlmmj-list -L /var/spool/mlmmj/nyhedsbrev/ | grep cromozon
>> cromozon@swn.nu
>> /$ sudo /usr/bin/mlmmj-unsub -L /var/spool/mlmmj/nyhedsbrev/ -a
>> cromozon@swn.nu -s
>> Changing to uid 65534, owner of /var/spool/mlmmj/nyhedsbrev/.
>> /$ sudo mlmmj-list -L /var/spool/mlmmj/nyhedsbrev/ | grep cromozon
>> cromozon@swn.nu
>>
>> As you can see, the mail adress is not deleted after the unsub command,
>> but in most cases, it works, what can be wrong?
> Have a look at the owner and permissions of the files - it looks to me as if the
> one in question is owned by someone other than it should.
>

Re: [mlmmj] Cannot remove mail adress

[Mads Martin Jørgensen]

2010/9/28 Christian Gleerup <christian.gleerup@swn.nu>:
>  Hi Martin,
>
> can you tell me where to look after the files?
> I have tried too look around below /var/spool/mlmmj/nyhedsbrev/, but I can't
> find any adresses in there.

Look in:

/var/spool/mlmmj/nyhedsbrev/subscribers.d/

where all files containing emailadresses are subscribers.

-- 
Mads Martin Joergensen, http://mmj.dk
"Why make things difficult, when it is possible to make them cryptic
 and totally illogical, with just a little bit more effort?"
                                 -- A. P. J.

Re: [mlmmj] Cannot remove mail adress

[Ben Schmidt]

Have a look at the permissions:

ls -ld /var/spool/mlmmj/nyhedsbrev
ls -ld /var/spool/mlmmj/nyhedsbrev/subscribers.d
ls -l /var/spool/mlmmj/nyhedsbrev/subscribers.d

Do the owners of all the directories and files match? (They should be
owned by the user that Mlmmj runs as when invoked by your MTA.) Are they
all writeable by the owner?

Commands like

chown -R nobody /var/spool/mlmmj/nyhedsbrev
chmod -R u+rw /var/spool/mlmmj/nyhedsbrev

can be used to set the permissions of everything in the list directory.
I've guessed 'nobody' because user ID 65534 is likely to be that user,
but you may need to adjust that. Are you using Postfix? If so, and
you're using it simply, it is likely that it is correct for 'nobody' to
be used.

Hope this helps,

Ben.



On 30/09/10 4:04 AM, Christian Gleerup wrote:
> Ok, I see them now, but.
>
> the concerned email adress i can't delete, lives in
>
> /var/spool/mlmmj/nyhedsbrev/subscribers.d/c
>
> See the following:
> /$ sudo cat /var/spool/mlmmj/nyhedsbrev/subscribers.d/c | grep cromozon
> cromozon@swn.nu
> cromozon@sawsaw.redirectme.net
>
> /$ sudo /usr/bin/mlmmj-unsub -L /var/spool/mlmmj/nyhedsbrev/ -a
> cromozon@sawsaw.redirectme.net -s
> Changing to uid 65534, owner of /var/spool/mlmmj/nyhedsbrev/.
> /$ sudo /usr/bin/mlmmj-unsub -L /var/spool/mlmmj/nyhedsbrev/ -a cromozon@swn.nu -s
> Changing to uid 65534, owner of /var/spool/mlmmj/nyhedsbrev/.
>
> /$ sudo cat /var/spool/mlmmj/nyhedsbrev/subscribers.d/c | grep cromozon
> cromozon@swn.nu
>
> Note, If I ommit the -s when i unsubscribe, I get an email with the text from
> unsub-notsubscribed
>
>
>
> Den 9/29/2010 8:20 AM, Mads Martin Jørgensen skrev:
>> Look in:
>>
>> /var/spool/mlmmj/nyhedsbrev/subscribers.d/
>>
>> where all files containing emailadresses are subscribers.
>>
>
>
>
>

Re: [mlmmj] Cannot remove mail adress

[Christian Gleerup]

I just checked the file, and it indeed contained a whitespace character
(\r)

this must have been an error when I made the mass subscribe system, I
will look out for this, but it would be nice if the system was a bit
more robust, and automatically removed trailing whitespaces :)

I wasn't able to remove the adress by sending a mail either, it said
that I was not a member.

after removing the \r, i was able to unsubscribe

many thanks

Christian.


> Also, have you tried unsubscribing through the mail system (assuming
> it's not a closed list), i.e. by sending mail to
> nyhedsbrev+unsubscribe@... from the problematic address?
> 
> Finally...I should say if it's just this one address, not a recurring
> problem that you need to fix, it wouldn't hurt to find the line in the
> subscribers.d/c file and just remove it with a text editor.
> 
> It would be good to know if that illusive extra whitespace is there
> though, regardless, particularly if you know how the address was
> subscribed, because there may be a bug in Mlmmj we can track down, or
an
> improvement we can make to avoid it happening again.
> 
> Smiles,
> 
> Ben.

Re: [mlmmj] Cannot remove mail adress

[Mads Martin Jørgensen]

On Sat, Oct 2, 2010 at 10:14 AM, Christian Gleerup
<christian.gleerup@swn.nu> wrote:
> I just checked the file, and it indeed contained a whitespace character
> (\r)
>
> this must have been an error when I made the mass subscribe system, I
> will look out for this, but it would be nice if the system was a bit
> more robust, and automatically removed trailing whitespaces :)

I believe it does remove trailing whitespaces, but that's not a
whitespace, that's a carriage return. We agree that it should be able
to handle it, and be more robust, since \r is not a valid emailaddress
character.

-- 
Mads Martin Joergensen, http://mmj.dk
"Why make things difficult, when it is possible to make them cryptic
 and totally illogical, with just a little bit more effort?"
                                 -- A. P. J.

Re: [mlmmj] Cannot remove mail adress

[Ben Schmidt]

On 2/10/10 6:27 PM, Mads Martin Jørgensen wrote:
> On Sat, Oct 2, 2010 at 10:14 AM, Christian Gleerup
> <christian.gleerup@swn.nu>  wrote:
>> I just checked the file, and it indeed contained a whitespace character
>> (\r)
>>
>> this must have been an error when I made the mass subscribe system,

In what way did this interface with Mlmmj? Do you know where the
carriage return came from in the first place? Would it have appeared in
a commandline argument to mlmmj-sub? Or...?

>> I will look out for this, but it would be nice if the system was a
>> bit more robust, and automatically removed trailing whitespaces :)
>
> I believe it does remove trailing whitespaces, but that's not a
> whitespace, that's a carriage return.

I think that's a whitespace. Non-linear, but still whitespace.

> We agree that it should be able to handle it, and be more robust,
> since \r is not a valid emailaddress character.

Yep. We all agree it would be nice to guard against this!

Ben.

Re: [mlmmj] Cannot remove mail adress

[Mads Martin Jørgensen]

On Wed, Oct 6, 2010 at 9:55 AM, Ben Schmidt
<mail_ben_schmidt@yahoo.com.au> wrote:
>> I believe it does remove trailing whitespaces, but that's not a
>> whitespace, that's a carriage return.
>
> I think that's a whitespace. Non-linear, but still whitespace.

According to the ASCII definition:

13	0D	CR	Carriage return

:-) It's from the old days of typewriters, where to start a new line
in your text, you first have to do a newline, and then send the
carriage back to the beginning of that line.

$ cat carret.c && gcc -o carret carret.c && ./carret
#include <stdio.h>

int main(int ac, char **av) {
        printf("ASCII Val: [%d]\n", (int)'\r');

        return 0;
}
ASCII Val: [13]

-- 
Mads Martin Joergensen, http://mmj.dk
"Why make things difficult, when it is possible to make them cryptic
 and totally illogical, with just a little bit more effort?"
                                 -- A. P. J.

Re: [mlmmj] Cannot remove mail adress

[Christian Laursen]

On 10/06/10 12:50, Mads Martin Jørgensen wrote:
> On Wed, Oct 6, 2010 at 9:55 AM, Ben Schmidt
> <mail_ben_schmidt@yahoo.com.au>  wrote:
>>> I believe it does remove trailing whitespaces, but that's not a
>>> whitespace, that's a carriage return.
>>
>> I think that's a whitespace. Non-linear, but still whitespace.

POSIX as well as perl seem to classify it as whitespace:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regular_expression#POSIX_character_classes

-- 
Christian Laursen

Re: [mlmmj] Cannot remove mail adress

[Ben Schmidt]

On 6/10/10 9:50 PM, Mads Martin Jørgensen wrote:
> On Wed, Oct 6, 2010 at 9:55 AM, Ben Schmidt
> <mail_ben_schmidt@yahoo.com.au>  wrote:
>>> I believe it does remove trailing whitespaces, but that's not a
>>> whitespace, that's a carriage return.
>>
>> I think that's a whitespace. Non-linear, but still whitespace.
>
> According to the ASCII definition:
>
> 13	0D	CR	Carriage return
>
> :-)

Well, yes, it is both.

According to my `man isspace':

      The isspace() function tests for the white-space characters.  For any
      locale, this includes the following standard characters:

      ``\t''   ``\n''    ``\v''    ``\f''    ``\r''    `` ''

:-)

The tab (\t) and space characters are linear whitespace (they appear in
a line just as other characters do), and the others are non-linear (they
break that rule somehow).

> It's from the old days of typewriters, where to start a new line
> in your text, you first have to do a newline, and then send the
> carriage back to the beginning of that line.

Indeed. Though in this case, \n is not newline, but linefeed,
semantically. Only on Unix, where \n represents both the carriage return
and the line feed, does it really mean newline. And, in fact, even that
meaning is not 100% right: it actually means EOL--end of line, for it is
used at the very end of a file to mark the end of the last line, even
though there is no new line after it. But we are often sloppy in our
terminology. :-)

I bought myself a typewriter recently. I have a friend who has one, too,
and it allows us to do instant messaging when we go away camping
together, just like when we are at home with our computers.

Smiles,

Ben.

Re: [mlmmj] Cannot remove mail adress

[Franky Van Liedekerke]

[-- Attachment #1: Type: text/plain, Size: 924 bytes --]

On Wed, Oct 6, 2010 at 1:07 PM, Christian Laursen <xi@borderworlds.dk>wrote:

> On 10/06/10 12:50, Mads Martin Jørgensen wrote:
>
>> On Wed, Oct 6, 2010 at 9:55 AM, Ben Schmidt
>> <mail_ben_schmidt@yahoo.com.au>  wrote:
>>
>>> I believe it does remove trailing whitespaces, but that's not a
>>>> whitespace, that's a carriage return.
>>>>
>>>
>>> I think that's a whitespace. Non-linear, but still whitespace.
>>>
>>
> POSIX as well as perl seem to classify it as whitespace:
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regular_expression#POSIX_character_classes
>
>
> yeah, but "whitespace" is an interpreted thing, I mean it is programmed
into perl to behave like that. C doesn't work that way, unless you can find
a similar standard function to search/replace as the one in perl? So: I
would say: just remove all illegal characters from the email, but you might
want to allow all UTF-8 characters ...

Franky

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Re: [mlmmj] Cannot remove mail adress

[Christian Gleerup]

Hi Ben,
I subscribed from a PHP script using mlmmj-sub.

The input comes from a textarea, where multiple mails are delimeted by
'line changes' (whatever the browser uses. seems like '\r\n')

I split into an array on '\n' and send to command line, to be excact:

$addressA = explode("\n", $_REQUEST['address']); 
foreach ($addressA as $a) {
   $a = trim($a); // Didn't trim when the bad mail was injected
  exec("sudo /usr/bin/mlmmj-sub -L /var/spool/mlmmj/nyhedsbrev/ -a {$a}
-s"); 
}

By the way, php describes trim like....
This function returns a string with whitespace stripped from the
beginning and end of str. Without the second parameter, trim() will
strip these characters: 

      * " " (ASCII 32 (0x20)), an ordinary space. 
      * "\t" (ASCII 9 (0x09)), a tab. 
      * "\n" (ASCII 10 (0x0A)), a new line (line feed). 
      * "\r" (ASCII 13 (0x0D)), a carriage return. 
      * "\0" (ASCII 0 (0x00)), the NUL-byte. 
      * "\x0B" (ASCII 11 (0x0B)), a vertical tab. 


ons, 06 10 2010 kl. 18:55 +1100, skrev Ben Schmidt:
> On 2/10/10 6:27 PM, Mads Martin Jørgensen wrote:
> > On Sat, Oct 2, 2010 at 10:14 AM, Christian Gleerup
> > <christian.gleerup@swn.nu>  wrote:
> >> I just checked the file, and it indeed contained a whitespace character
> >> (\r)
> >>
> >> this must have been an error when I made the mass subscribe system,
> 
> In what way did this interface with Mlmmj? Do you know where the
> carriage return came from in the first place? Would it have appeared in
> a commandline argument to mlmmj-sub? Or...?
> 
> >> I will look out for this, but it would be nice if the system was a
> >> bit more robust, and automatically removed trailing whitespaces :)
> >
> > I believe it does remove trailing whitespaces, but that's not a
> > whitespace, that's a carriage return.
> 
> I think that's a whitespace. Non-linear, but still whitespace.
> 
> > We agree that it should be able to handle it, and be more robust,
> > since \r is not a valid emailaddress character.
> 
> Yep. We all agree it would be nice to guard against this!
> 
> Ben.
> 
> 
> 

Re: [mlmmj] Cannot remove mail adress

[Ben Schmidt]

> I subscribed from a PHP script using mlmmj-sub.

Great to know.

> The input comes from a textarea, where multiple mails are delimeted by
> 'line changes' (whatever the browser uses. seems like '\r\n')

It should be, at least if standards are followed. HTML4 defines the
linebreak representation for form submission as CRLF. It's the most
sensible thing to use, because it means a bunch of translation doesn't
have to go on between HTTP's linebreak representation.

I fixed basically the same problem in php-admin recently:

http://mlmmj.org/hg/mlmmj/rev/b37f66e0852b

It was writing to control files, though, not calling programs, and Mlmmj
probably chomps the lines in the control files when it reads them and
masks the problem, unlike the case you found.

> I split into an array on '\n' and send to command line, to be excact:
>
> $addressA = explode("\n", $_REQUEST['address']);
> foreach ($addressA as $a) {
>     $a = trim($a); // Didn't trim when the bad mail was injected
>    exec("sudo /usr/bin/mlmmj-sub -L /var/spool/mlmmj/nyhedsbrev/ -a {$a}
> -s");
> }

Thank you. Bug filed with this as a test case!

Ben.



> By the way, php describes trim like....
> This function returns a string with whitespace stripped from the
> beginning and end of str. Without the second parameter, trim() will
> strip these characters:
>
>        * " " (ASCII 32 (0x20)), an ordinary space.
>        * "\t" (ASCII 9 (0x09)), a tab.
>        * "\n" (ASCII 10 (0x0A)), a new line (line feed).
>        * "\r" (ASCII 13 (0x0D)), a carriage return.
>        * "\0" (ASCII 0 (0x00)), the NUL-byte.
>        * "\x0B" (ASCII 11 (0x0B)), a vertical tab.
>
>
> ons, 06 10 2010 kl. 18:55 +1100, skrev Ben Schmidt:
>> On 2/10/10 6:27 PM, Mads Martin Jørgensen wrote:
>>> On Sat, Oct 2, 2010 at 10:14 AM, Christian Gleerup
>>> <christian.gleerup@swn.nu>   wrote:
>>>> I just checked the file, and it indeed contained a whitespace character
>>>> (\r)
>>>>
>>>> this must have been an error when I made the mass subscribe system,
>>
>> In what way did this interface with Mlmmj? Do you know where the
>> carriage return came from in the first place? Would it have appeared in
>> a commandline argument to mlmmj-sub? Or...?
>>
>>>> I will look out for this, but it would be nice if the system was a
>>>> bit more robust, and automatically removed trailing whitespaces :)
>>>
>>> I believe it does remove trailing whitespaces, but that's not a
>>> whitespace, that's a carriage return.
>>
>> I think that's a whitespace. Non-linear, but still whitespace.
>>
>>> We agree that it should be able to handle it, and be more robust,
>>> since \r is not a valid emailaddress character.
>>
>> Yep. We all agree it would be nice to guard against this!
>>
>> Ben.
>>
>>
>>
>
>
>
>
>