Re: MAJORDOMO ABORT (mj_majordomo)

I will assume based on your reply that you are new to unix/sendmail/majordomo,
and you don't know how to google.  Did you mention this is happening on just
one, or all of your lists?  Narrowing the problem down makes it easier to solve.


If you log on to your majordomo server, and run "uname -a" what is output?
Assuming the GNU version of "grep" is available on your OS, this script should
help.  If your lists are not in /var/lib/majordomo/lists, change to match your
environment.

------------------------>%cut here%<-------------------------------------------
#!/bin/sh

listdir=/var/lib/majordomo/lists

/bin/grep -i "mailer-daemon" $listdir/*
/bin/grep -i "postmaster" $listdir/*
/bin/grep -i "root" $listdir/* | grep -v config
------------------------>%cut here%<-------------------------------------------

If you get any output from the above script, you have a problem.

Another place to look is your /etc/aliases file.

/bin/grep -i postmaster /etc/aliases

You should see something like:

mailer-daemon:  postmaster
postmaster:     root
info:           postmaster
marketing:      postmaster
sales:          postmaster
support:        postmaster

To top this off, you should have a "root" alias here that points to a real
address, like;

root: [email protected]

As mentioned previously, the most likely answer is that a spammer forged
your majordomo address in the from header of their junk mail.  Some of the
emails they sent are undeliverable/bouncing to the return address of your
majordomo.  These bounces are "from" mailer-daemon or postmaster, and the
default majordomo configuration refuses to reply, which is a good thing.
If majordomo did respond, you would end up in two robots auto-responding
to each other for infinity.

Be glad majordomo aborted, but check your /var/lib/majordomo/Log file and
maybe /var/log/maillog to see what else is reported.  Maybe you can block
the "blowback" spam, and make certain that your server is not the cause of
the problem.

Dan Liston

Sharma, Vikas wrote:
> Daniel,
> 
> I have not changed anything in majordomo.
> I'm using sendmail with majordomo. I have several lists in majordomo for
> many users.
> But I started getting these messages just now. I'm not sure if my list
> have a subscriber named root@ or postmaster@ address. Can I check it by
> some script?
> 
> 
>> Vikas 
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Daniel Liston [mailto:[email protected]] 
> Sent: Tuesday, August 04, 2009 10:20 AM
> To: Sharma, Vikas
> Cc: [email protected]
> Subject: Re: MAJORDOMO ABORT (mj_majordomo)
> 
> Sharma, Vikas wrote:
>> Hi,
>>
>> I have started getting the below error:
>>
>> -------------------------------------------------------
>> MAJORDOMO ABORT (mj_majordomo)!!
>>
>> [email protected]_ <mailto:[email protected]>:
>> not replying to MAILER-DAEMON to avoid mail loop.
>> ---------------------------------------------------------
>>
>> Can someone please help me what is the problem?
>>
>>
> 
> There are possibilities of one or more of several problems.  Have you
> changed anything recently?  What mailer (MTA) do you have majordomo
> configured with?
> 
> If you google on "MAJORDOMO ABORT" or MAILER-DAEMON and "mail loop"...
> 
> Do you have more than one list?  Does this happen on just one of them?
> Does your list have a subscriber named root@ or postmaster@ address?
> 
> These days, with 90-95% of all email on the internet being spam, you
> probably received a bounce message to your majordomo address. Check your
> sendmail logs and your majordomo/Log for entries with the same or near
> the same time stamp as your abort message to confirm.
> 
> Dan Liston
>