Mailing List Archive: Postmaster Notify on Frozen Messages

Postmaster Notify on Frozen Messages

Jun 4, 2002, 7:24 AM

Post #1 of 6 (1708 views)

How do I turn off this stupid Postmaster notification concerning frozen
messages... 3000 messages every hour telling the postmaster that bounces
are frozen is kind of ridiculous. I couldn't really care less that a
bounced message is in the queue frozen since the system deletes them
after 4 days anyway. The ones that are important (outbound e-mail that
isn't a bounce) now that's another story. But it still keeps notifying
postmaster@localhost 20 or 30 times an hour that the message is
frozen... You'd think once would be enough. Our mail server gets
bombed by spammers attempting to send mail to any valid address
regularly. (Is there any way for exim to detect this and automatically
stop accepting port 25 connections from the offending IP address either
permanently or for a limited time with a log reflecting the IP?)

Thanks in advance for any suggestions.

And regarding the previous responses I've gotten as to the utter
futility of trying to understand the exim docs... It helps to take into
account that they're not really documentation, but a specification.
Even if they still make stereo instructions read like a Dr. Seuss book.

RE: Postmaster Notify on Frozen Messages [ In reply to ]

cdaehn at pobox

Jun 4, 2002, 7:28 AM

Post #2 of 6 (1695 views)

Permalink

Nevermind. I'm a little dense sometimes... Looked in the docs and
turned freeze notify mailmaster off.

Re: Postmaster Notify on Frozen Messages [ In reply to ]

yann at kierun

Jun 4, 2002, 7:34 AM

Post #3 of 6 (1698 views)

Permalink

Quoth Cory Daehn on Tue, Jun 04, 2002 at 09:24:27 -0500
> How do I turn off this stupid Postmaster notification concerning frozen
> messages... 3000 messages every hour telling the postmaster that bounces
> are frozen is kind of ridiculous. I couldn't really care less that a
> bounced message is in the queue frozen since the system deletes them
> after 4 days anyway. The ones that are important (outbound e-mail that
> isn't a bounce) now that's another story. But it still keeps notifying
> postmaster@localhost 20 or 30 times an hour that the message is
> frozen... You'd think once would be enough. Our mail server gets
> bombed by spammers attempting to send mail to any valid address
> regularly. (Is there any way for exim to detect this and automatically
> stop accepting port 25 connections from the offending IP address either
> permanently or for a limited time with a log reflecting the IP?)

I think you will find your answer with a clever use of a greping tool
within your favorite pager while looking at the specification file.

Or you could be really bold and look at www.exim.org -> documentation
section that has a clickable index.

Or you could look at the book.

Or you could check the FAQ.

Or you could check the list archives.

I think I can sum it all up in one swift acronim: RTFM!!!

> Thanks in advance for any suggestions.

You're welcome.

> And regarding the previous responses I've gotten as to the utter
> futility of trying to understand the exim docs... It helps to take into
> account that they're not really documentation, but a specification.
> Even if they still make stereo instructions read like a Dr. Seuss book.

Strange. Everybody else seems to manage fine.

--
yann@kierun.org -=*=- www.kierun.org
PGP: www.kierun.org/pgp/key-kierun
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IRC: nick kierun, server spod.uk.amiganet.org, channel #sanctus

Re: Postmaster Notify on Frozen Messages [ In reply to ]

yann at kierun

Jun 4, 2002, 7:35 AM

Post #4 of 6 (1699 views)

Permalink

Quoth Cory Daehn on Tue, Jun 04, 2002 at 09:28:33 -0500
> Nevermind. I'm a little dense sometimes... Looked in the docs and
> turned freeze notify mailmaster off.

*grin* We all have bad days...

*sneeze and goes and look at drugs to stop the hayfever*

--
yann@kierun.org -=*=- www.kierun.org
PGP: www.kierun.org/pgp/key-kierun
PGP: 009D 7287 C4A7 FD4F 1680 06E4 F751 7006 9DE2 6318
IRC: nick kierun, server spod.uk.amiganet.org, channel #sanctus

Re: Postmaster Notify on Frozen Messages [ In reply to ]

gward at mems-exchange

Jun 4, 2002, 7:42 AM

Post #5 of 6 (1746 views)

Permalink

On 04 June 2002, Cory Daehn said:
> And regarding the previous responses I've gotten as to the utter
> futility of trying to understand the exim docs... It helps to take into
> account that they're not really documentation, but a specification.
> Even if they still make stereo instructions read like a Dr. Seuss book.

The Exim spec assumes that you already have a solid understanding of
how Internet email works. I didn't when I started, so I read it again
and again and again, and it's starting to sink in. Have you tried
reading Philip Hazel's book on Exim? I gather it is a much gentler
intro, and includes lots of general how-Internet-email-works material.

Greg
--
Greg Ward - software developer gward@mems-exchange.org
MEMS Exchange http://www.mems-exchange.org

Re: Postmaster Notify on Frozen Messages [ In reply to ]

flavell at a5

Jun 4, 2002, 10:23 AM

Post #6 of 6 (1697 views)

Permalink

On Tue, 4 Jun 2002, Cory Daehn wrote:

> regularly. (Is there any way for exim to detect this and automatically
> stop accepting port 25 connections from the offending IP address either
> permanently or for a limited time with a log reflecting the IP?)

You better be sure you really want that. In many cases, causing your
primary MX to stop responding is only going to lead to the spammers
dumping the mail onto one of your secondary MXes (you do have
secondary MXes?), which just makes extra work for the task of
anti-spamming.

If it's your intention to avoid getting the mail which matches the
above profile, you'd be better to ensure that you _do_ respond to the
incoming SMTP, and give them a firmly negative answer (the
reject_recipients kind seems to go down somewhat better than the plain
reject kind, as the documentation indeed implies - I'm referring to
exim version 3 if this is relevant).

There's a few hardliners who recommend the Teergrube (tar-pit)
approach, but I think you need pretty strong nerves and very careful
admin to make that policy stick.

cheers