[mlmmj] message probes

[mlmmj] message probes

[Florian Effenberger]

Hi,

some people complain, that from time to time they receive message
probes ("The messages X, Y and Z could not be delivered to you").
Under which conditions are they sent? Only with 5xx SMTP errors, or
also with 4xx SMTP errors?

Thanks,
Florian

Re: [mlmmj] message probes

[Mads Martin Jørgensen]

On Tue, Oct 19, 2010 at 11:28 AM, Florian Effenberger <floeff@gmail.com> wrote:
> some people complain, that from time to time they receive message
> probes ("The messages X, Y and Z could not be delivered to you").
> Under which conditions are they sent? Only with 5xx SMTP errors, or
> also with 4xx SMTP errors?

If the mailserver gets a 4xx reply, it doesn't bounce the mail at
first, but keeps trying. So mlmmj wont see those before the smtpd
gives up. What it could be is that when some services bounce spam
instead of rejecting on smtp level, they bounce it (correctly) to the
envelope from. And any mail coming in to an mlmmj bounce address will
be added to the probe queue. Go have a look in the list archive
directory, and see if any of those numbers is not indeed spam.

-- 
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] message probes

[Christian Laursen]

On 10/19/10 11:39, Mads Martin Jørgensen wrote:
> On Tue, Oct 19, 2010 at 11:28 AM, Florian Effenberger<floeff@gmail.com>  wrote:
>> some people complain, that from time to time they receive message
>> probes ("The messages X, Y and Z could not be delivered to you").
>> Under which conditions are they sent? Only with 5xx SMTP errors, or
>> also with 4xx SMTP errors?
>
> If the mailserver gets a 4xx reply, it doesn't bounce the mail at
> first, but keeps trying. So mlmmj wont see those before the smtpd
> gives up. What it could be is that when some services bounce spam
> instead of rejecting on smtp level, they bounce it (correctly) to the
> envelope from. And any mail coming in to an mlmmj bounce address will
> be added to the probe queue. Go have a look in the list archive
> directory, and see if any of those numbers is not indeed spam.

I have also seen from time to time, that people forward their mail to 
two accounts. One of them is the one they actually use which works fine 
and the other one bounces mails sent to it.

That setup will ensure them a lot of bounce probes. :)

-- 
Christian Laursen

Re: [mlmmj] message probes

[Florian Effenberger]

Hi Mads,

2010/10/19 Mads Martin Jørgensen <mmj@mmj.dk>:

> If the mailserver gets a 4xx reply, it doesn't bounce the mail at
> first, but keeps trying. So mlmmj wont see those before the smtpd
> gives up. What it could be is that when some services bounce spam
> instead of rejecting on smtp level, they bounce it (correctly) to the
> envelope from. And any mail coming in to an mlmmj bounce address will
> be added to the probe queue. Go have a look in the list archive
> directory, and see if any of those numbers is not indeed spam.

hm... we do spam filtering in the SMTP session, so it's rejected
directly, not bounced. However, it seems the problem vanished as
well... :)

Florian