policydb problem causes mail looping... (2.99.49p8)

[Ambrose Li <news-misc@mingpaoxpress.com>]

After a very unlucky evening (network problems plus the
corruption of the policy database), I found a bunch of 
"Too many Received lines" messages in my mailbox. Which
indicated two problems:

1. The smtpserver immediately quits if there is a policydb
   problem. It turns out that it is possible that this will
   translate to smtpserver being continuously run and then
   quit (while the other end continuously retries), filling
   up the log partition quickly. Perhaps the smtpserver
   should pause some time if there if a policydb problem.
   (3719 such connect-and-then-quit sessions were logged
   during only a few minutes, even though only three email
   messages were involved afaik.)

2. Somehow, the smtp ta and the smtpserver interacts in
   such a way where the "400 policy database problem" error
   counts as a hop. Coupled with problem (1), the maximum
   number of hops is quickly reached in the case of a
   policydb problem.

I haven't looked at a solution yet, but I think this is
serious enough to bring up the problems first.


--
Ambrose C. Li <acli@mingpaoxpress.com> Programmer-analyst (sysadmin)
Toronto EDP, Ming Pao Daily News +1(416)321-0088 1355 Huntingwood Dr
Scarborough ON Canada  M1S 3J1 [<- work ]
                                 [ home ->] <acli@acli.interlog.com>