SV: Wallace

[Paul Klos]

Simon Forsell schreef op 27-03-2013 13:38:
> Yes I did, but as fast as I do that I get
> 
> root at mail:/etc/init.d# error: uncaptured python exception, closing 
> channel
> <smtpd.SMTPChannel connected 127.0.0.1:59362 at 0x9c13dec> (<type
> 'exceptions.UnicodeDecodeError'>:'utf8' codec can't decode byte 0x84 
> in
> position 2239: invalid start byte 
> [/usr/lib/python2.7/asyncore.py|read|83]

Hi Simon,

This does indeed look like bug #1627.

I suspect this is a mail that is held in your queue, which gets 
resubmitted when you restart postfix. Is that indeed the case?

The held mails are kept in /var/spool/postfix/deferred. The format is 
binary, and contains both the mail itself as well as routing 
information. Specifically, the address of the next hop is somewhere at 
the top of that file (it can be inspected with less, actually). Like I 
wrote earlier this morning, disabling wallace will prevent new mails 
from getting rejected and getting stuck in the queue, but it doesn't 
solve the immediate issue of this mail, or any other that is stuck in 
the queue right now.

I ran into #1627 a while ago. The only actual fix I found was using 
hexedit to replace the offending characters (0x84 at position 2239 in 
this case) with something acceptable, and resubmitting the message. 
Multiple attempts may be necessary, as wallace will error out on the 
first unacceptable character it encounters. This obviously requires 
wallace to be running, because wallace is still the next hop for this 
specific message. I did this for a few (unimportant) messages, just to 
see if it would work, but I can imagine it's not a solution that makes 
you very happy :-).

If you don't need this email, you can also do nothing, and postfix will 
give up after a certain period (5 days default) and delete it. To 
prevent new mails getting stuck, you can disable wallace as described by 
Torsten.

Or you might figure out who sent it and ask them to send it again, 
after you disable wallace. The mail should go through then.

There might be other options; maybe someone with a deeper understanding 
of postfix can shed some light.

Cheers,

Paul