[campsite-support] Mail problem - urgent solution needed - Newscoop Support Discussions on Sourcefabric Forum

import

Hello,

quite "magically" the "new mail" folder of the online instance of
Campsite gets filled up, the messages are some 800k in size on
average, appear to be server-side generated. Within a short time it's
now reaching some 300 MB, even though there isn't even a mail address
defined for that account.

I can't even touch those mails directly, as they are not associated
with an email account existing for that domain, yet they are
attributed to the hosting account and gather up in the new mail
folder. Here's part of a typical header:

Subject: Cron /home/abc/public_html/bin/events-notifier
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8
Auto-Submitted: auto-generated
X-Cron-Env:
X-Cron-Env:
X-Cron-Env:
X-Cron-Env:
X-Cron-Env:

Running is PHP 5.2.10 as suPHP, thus changing any permissions or
whatever is not an option, MySQL is 5.0.81-community and Apache is
2.2.12 (Unix). What is this and how can I stop it?

Cheers,

Pippa

import

Dear Pippa,

Most probably the events notification was disabled until now. Please go to
user types in the Campsite admin menu (Users->Staff User Types), edit each
user type and uncheck the "User will be notified on several events" option
under the miscellaneous section. If you customized user permissions for some
of your users then you will have to do the same thing for all of them
(Users->Staff).

It is strange though that the message size is about 800k, which is huge.
Could you please send me a full message like this to analyze?

Mugur

On Sun, Aug 30, 2009 at 8:19 AM, pippa wrote:

> Hello,
>
> quite "magically" the "new mail" folder of the online instance of
> Campsite gets filled up, the messages are some 800k in size on
> average, appear to be server-side generated. Within a short time it's
> now reaching some 300 MB, even though there isn't even a mail address
> defined for that account.
>
> I can't even touch those mails directly, as they are not associated
> with an email account existing for that domain, yet they are
> attributed to the hosting account and gather up in the new mail
> folder. Here's part of a typical header:
>
> Subject: Cron /home/abc/public_html/bin/events-notifier
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8
> Auto-Submitted: auto-generated
> X-Cron-Env:
> X-Cron-Env:
> X-Cron-Env:
> X-Cron-Env:
> X-Cron-Env:
>
> Running is PHP 5.2.10 as suPHP, thus changing any permissions or
> whatever is not an option, MySQL is 5.0.81-community and Apache is
> 2.2.12 (Unix). What is this and how can I stop it?
>
> Cheers,
>
> Pippa
>
>
>
>

import

Hello Mugur,

Sunday, August 30, 2009, 12:12:31 PM, you wrote:

MR> Most probably the events notification was disabled until now. Please go to
MR> user types in the Campsite admin menu (Users->Staff User Types), edit each
MR> user type and uncheck the "User will be notified on several events" option
MR> under the miscellaneous section. If you customized user permissions for some
MR> of your users then you will have to do the same thing for all of them
MR>(Users->>Staff).

No, actually the notification was ENABLED for all types administrator,
chief editor and editor, it's a fresh install of the latest
distribution (3.3.2 RC I believe).

It was DISABLED for the actual users on the system! I didn't disable
that, it already was disabled when I just now checked. I haven't
worked in any way on users so far by the way.

I'm switching everything off as we speak and will then lift the CPanel
mail filter I installed against that flood earlier this morning. Hope
it will not reappear. The system sent mails at a rate of 2 per minute
ever since it was installed.

MR> It is strange though that the message size is about 800k, which is huge.
MR> Could you please send me a full message like this to analyze?

It's a typo, sorry, it is about the size of 800 bytes. I cleaned some
40,000 emails from the mail folder. Unfortunately I can't forward any
such message, I still don't get messages from Campsite which can be
properly read and it sent emails not to any of the staff email
addresses, it sent mail to the server, which my host directedly routed
into the new mail folder. I don't call mail from that folder at all, I
only call from individual email addresses.

Cheers,

Pippa

import

Hello Mugur,

Sunday, August 30, 2009, 12:12:31 PM, you wrote:

Okay, I just lifted the filter and the mails come in again!!!

They come from root and have as subject:

Subject: Cron /home/abc/public_html/bin/campsite-autopublish

abc is the account, bob is the server name of the host server.

During the time I wrote this mail 8 more came in.

Cheers,

Pippa

import

Hello Mugur,

I managed to forward such a mail to myself, and all the text it
contained is:

X-Powered-By: PHP/5.2.10
Set-Cookie: PHPSESSID=c1a586663abb713f0db83c03d922aefa; path=/
Content-type: text/html

They are actually coming at a rate of 1 every 30 seconds. The
switching off of the staff permissions did NOT stop them. I asked the
host to check and he says this thing is creating quite some workload
on the system. So far they can deal with it, but they too would like
to have it stopped, as it's squandering ressources better spent
elsewhere.

So, how to stop this? Right now I have the filter active again, but
that just stops the mails from being written to the server harddrive,
it doesn't stop the mail being sent and received and filtered into
trash, with some 3000 mails generated per day.

Cheers,

Pippa

import

Hi Pippa,

It seems that emails are sent by the cron daemon, not by the campsite
events-notifier script. This may be caused by campsite scripts returning
error code on exit. Please run the following scripts manually and paste here
the output for each of them:
1. /home/abc/public_html/bin/events-notifier
2. /home/abc/public_html/bin/campsite-autopublish

Mugur

On Sun, Aug 30, 2009 at 3:28 PM, pippa wrote:

> Hello Mugur,
>
> I managed to forward such a mail to myself, and all the text it
> contained is:
>
> X-Powered-By: PHP/5.2.10
> Set-Cookie: PHPSESSID=c1a586663abb713f0db83c03d922aefa; path=/
> Content-type: text/html
>
> They are actually coming at a rate of 1 every 30 seconds. The
> switching off of the staff permissions did NOT stop them. I asked the
> host to check and he says this thing is creating quite some workload
> on the system. So far they can deal with it, but they too would like
> to have it stopped, as it's squandering ressources better spent
> elsewhere.
>
> So, how to stop this? Right now I have the filter active again, but
> that just stops the mails from being written to the server harddrive,
> it doesn't stop the mail being sent and received and filtered into
> trash, with some 3000 mails generated per day.
>
> Cheers,
>
> Pippa
>
>
>

import

Hello Mugur,

Monday, August 31, 2009, 1:41:42 PM, you wrote:

MR> It seems that emails are sent by the cron daemon, not by the campsite
MR> events-notifier script. This may be caused by campsite scripts returning
MR> error code on exit. Please run the following scripts manually and paste here
MR> the output for each of them:
MR> 1. /home/abc/public_html/bin/events-notifier
MR> 2. /home/abc/public_html/bin/campsite-autopublish

Thanks for looking into this!

How do I run them manually and where do I have to look for the output?

Cheers,

Pippa

import

Open a shell/text console and copy/paste the command:
/home/abc/public_html/bin/campsite-autopublish

To open a shell you usually have to use ssh to log in to the server. There
are ssh clients for windows, you can search for them on google. Your server
admin should provide you with the data needed to connect to your server.

Mugur

On Mon, Aug 31, 2009 at 3:44 PM, pippa wrote:

> Hello Mugur,
>
> Monday, August 31, 2009, 1:41:42 PM, you wrote:
>
> MR> It seems that emails are sent by the cron daemon, not by the campsite
> MR> events-notifier script. This may be caused by campsite scripts
> returning
> MR> error code on exit. Please run the following scripts manually and paste
> here
> MR> the output for each of them:
> MR> 1. /home/abc/public_html/bin/events-notifier
> MR> 2. /home/abc/public_html/bin/campsite-autopublish
>
> Thanks for looking into this!
>
> How do I run them manually and where do I have to look for the output?
>
> Cheers,
>
> Pippa
>
>
>

import

Hello Mugur,

MR> Open a shell/text console and copy/paste the command:
MR> /home/abc/public_html/bin/campsite-autopublish
MR> To open a shell you usually have to use ssh to log in to the server. There
MR> are ssh clients for windows, you can search for them on google. Your server
MR> admin should provide you with the data needed to connect to your server.

Sorry, Mugur, this is a normal shared hosting account (not a VPS or
dedicated server) - no shell/commandline access.

I have access to normal CPanel functions, PHPMyadmin and FTP, but
that's all.

Specs are:

Campsite 3.3.2 RC
PHP 5.2.10 (as suPHP)
MySQL 5.0.81-community
Apache 2.2.12 (Unix)

Is there no other way to check or remedy this? Else I'd have to write
a support ticket and have the hosting company do this.

Cheers,

Pippa

import

Please upload the attached file (campsite-autopublish) to the bin directory
in the campsite install directory. This will fix a bug in this script.

If you did not need the events notifier you can disable it by editing the
file bin/events-notifier and inserting the text "exit;" at line 2. This
should lower the amount of emails sent by cron.

I would really need to see the output of any cron script to find out what is
causing the problems. Usually cron forwards any output from these scripts
but I didn't see any in the previous email you sent, that's why I asked you
to run these scripts manually.

In CPanel you should have the option (usually) to run a terminal or a
console. Please look for this kind of option.

Mugur

On Mon, Aug 31, 2009 at 4:23 PM, pippa wrote:

> Hello Mugur,
>
>
> MR> Open a shell/text console and copy/paste the command:
> MR> /home/abc/public_html/bin/campsite-autopublish
> MR> To open a shell you usually have to use ssh to log in to the server.
> There
> MR> are ssh clients for windows, you can search for them on google. Your
> server
> MR> admin should provide you with the data needed to connect to your
> server.
>
> Sorry, Mugur, this is a normal shared hosting account (not a VPS or
> dedicated server) - no shell/commandline access.
>
> I have access to normal CPanel functions, PHPMyadmin and FTP, but
> that's all.
>
> Specs are:
>
> Campsite 3.3.2 RC
> PHP 5.2.10 (as suPHP)
> MySQL 5.0.81-community
> Apache 2.2.12 (Unix)
>
> Is there no other way to check or remedy this? Else I'd have to write
> a support ticket and have the hosting company do this.
>
> Cheers,
>
> Pippa
>
>
>

Howdy, Stranger!

Categories

Poll

Top Posters