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Re: corrupt inboxes

2001-10-08 02:54:00

Hi Fred.

I have seen very similar stuff caused by improper file locking in the
mail spool, usually when the mail spool is NFS mounted.  You probably
have more problems with busier or larger mailboxes.

If you're using procmail as a replacement for mail.local, you should
make sure that your file locking WORKS, and that the method being used
by procmail is the same as the method being used by your IMAP and POP3
clients.

Note that Ctrl-@, or ^@, is often how a "null" (character 0) is
represented.

So ... yeah, you can blame procmail for doing this to your mailbox, in
the same way you can blame Linus for writing the kernel of the operating
system you're storing the files in.  :)


On Mon, Oct 08, 2001 at 12:13:02PM +0300, urgrue wrote:
From: urgrue <urgrue(_at_)tumsan(_dot_)fi>
To: procmail(_at_)Lists(_dot_)RWTH-Aachen(_dot_)DE
Subject: corrupt inboxes
X-Mailer: Balsa 1.1.3
Date: Mon, 8 Oct 2001 12:13:02 +0300

hello,
im having a serious mail problem. logically the most likely culprit is
procmail but i cant say that's for sure.
the problem shows up as some users having mail in their inboxes that
has its headers messed up. there will be lots of ^@ characters
in the middle of the headers. heres an example:

From eeva(_dot_)sinivuori(_at_)domain(_dot_)fi  Fri Oct  5 07:47:45 2001
Return-Path: <eeva(_dot_)sinivuori(_at_)domain(_dot_)fi>
Received: from eevasi (int-cust-F58040.telenordia.fi [213.15.128.73]
(may be forged))
        by ns.tumsan.fi (8.11.0/8.11.0/SuSE Linux 8.11.0-0.4) with
SMTP id f954liW17946;
        Fri, 5 Oct 2001 07:47:44 +0300
X-Authentication-Warning: ns.tumsan.fi: Host
int-cust-F58040.telenordia.fi [213.15.128.73] (may be forged) claimed
to be eevasi
From: "Eeva Sinivuori" <eeva(_dot_)sinivuori(_at_)domain(_dot_)fi>
To: "antti laurila" <antti(_dot_)laurila(_at_)domain(_dot_)fi>,
Subjec^(_at_)^@^(_at_)^@^(_at_)^@^(_at_)^@^(_at_)^@^(_at_)^@^(_at_)^@^(_at_)^@^(_at_)^@^(_at_)^@^(_at_)^@^(_at_)^@^(_at_)^@^(_at_)^@^(_at_)^@^(_at_)^@^(_at_)^@^(_at_)^@^(_at_)^@^(_at_)^@^(_at_)^@^(_at_)^@^(_at_)^@^(_at_)^@^(_at_)^@^(_at_)^@^(_at_)^@^(_at_)^@^(_at_)^@^(_at_)^@^(_at_)^@^(_at_)^@^(_at_)^@^(_at_)^@^(_at_)^@^(_at_)^@^(_at_)^@^(_at_)^@^(_at_)^@^(_at_)^@^(_at_)From
eeva(_dot_)sinivuori(_at_)domain(_dot_)fi  Fri Oct  5 08:56:10 2001
Return-Path: <eeva(_dot_)sinivuori(_at_)domain(_dot_)fi>

as you can see basically a mail will start out okay, then suddenly in
the middle of it, the rest of the mail is transformed into this ^@
symbol (also seen as an underlined @ depending on what viewer i use).
then begins the next message.

the location of these ^(_at_)^@^@ characters varies, sometimes it starts in
the body, other times in the headers. theres no constant.
also its not limited to any particular users/senders or anything. the
only constant is that it affects only the users of a specific virtual
host under sendmail, but then again they send about 100 times more
attachments than anybody else, so that may not mean anything.

they use POP, and ive seen these errors straight in their spool file.
so its not their fault.
theres no logic to the senders, so its not on the sending end, either.
so it must be me. so its either sendmail or procmail, right?

i upgraded both to latest rpms i could find. in this case procmail is
3.15.1. sendmail is 8.11.0
im a bit afraid to upgrade on-the-fly except from suse's rpms, because
this is in serious production use, so id rather not just start
upgrading hoping the problem goes away, lest i break it completely.

i see no errors in any logs, the hard drives are free of errors and
functioning fine.


can someone tell me:
-has anyone else seen this before?
-is it logical for me to blame procmail, could it logically be
something else?
-has a bug that might cause this been fixed between 3.15.1 and the
latest version? (i browsed the changelog but im not sure)


please help, this is causing me big problems...

thanks,
fred

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  Paul Chvostek                                             
<paul(_at_)it(_dot_)ca>
  Operations / Development / Abuse / Whatever       vox: +1 416 598-0000
  IT Canada                                            http://www.it.ca/

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