On Sat, 14 Feb 1998 [log in to unmask] wrote:
> We are having much difficulty in making LISTSERV work with a late
> version of SENDMAIL (using LINUX redhat).
>
> A small test recipient list gets delivered, but a large list fails.
> The same problem was detected using MAJORDOMO, so the problem seems to
> lie somewhere other than LISTSERV.

I'm definitely not volunteering as a consultant, but ..

1) Make sure that your problem isn't running out of memory, swap, or spool
space. Linux supports vmstat, right? Try something like

vmstat 1 100

and keep an eye on what happens when you send off your request. LISTSERV
could crash, or at least fail to successfully queue mail for delivery when
its out of room; and it may or may not tell you of the situation.

2) Sendmail versions earlier than 8.8.8 may contain a bug whereby
some (?) recipients of large mailing lists may have their mail silently
dropped. Try upgrading your version of sendmail to the latest version. You
can get it from http://www.sendmail.org.

3) Once when I was having a problem with someone getting dropped by a
mailing list, I sent a quick message to the mailing list, and immediately
pulled out the ethernet, so I could do a

                sendmail -bp

and verify that listserv at least queued them to sendmail for delivery; I
then purged the queued job so nobody knew I did the test. This only works
if your receipients are on another machine, of course.

4) Double check your "large list". We had a problem once where someone's
list wasn't working, and it turned out that a bunch of names or addresses
had really wierd control characters that LISTSERV disliked for some
reason.

                        Yours Truly,
                        Jeff Boulier