Here's a problem I ran into.  I've managed to resolve it, so this is mainly
in case anyone else out there ever runs into this.  (I didn't find anything
related in the LSTOWN-L logs, though perhaps I didn't look hard enough.)

We sent out a mass-mailing on Friday night.  Monday morning I checked the
logs and discovered that there were a whole mess of lines like this:

20 Dec 1997 01:58:48 Processing file 319319 from [log in to unmask]
20 Dec 1997 01:58:48 Sent information mail to [log in to unmask]

This was a bit odd.  Normally when a user sends mail to LISTSERV it gives a
line-by-line breakdown of that email in the log file (with LISTSERV's
response to each line).  Still, this looked like a pretty standard
autoreply mail loop to me, so I SERVED the address OFF.

22 Dec 1997 12:53:47 Processing file 357102 from [log in to unmask]
22 Dec 1997 12:53:47 Sent information mail to [log in to unmask]
22 Dec 1997 12:54:01 Processing file 357104 from [log in to unmask]
22 Dec 1997 12:54:01 From [log in to unmask]: serve
[log in to unmask] off PW=[censored]
22 Dec 1997 12:54:01 To   [log in to unmask]: Your access to
LISTSERV has just been suspended by [log in to unmask] (...)
22 Dec 1997 12:54:01 To   [log in to unmask]: [log in to unmask]
has been permanently served out. Access can (...)
22 Dec 1997 12:54:02 Sent information mail to [log in to unmask]
22 Dec 1997 12:54:02 Sent information mail to [log in to unmask]
22 Dec 1997 12:54:33 Processing file 357107 from [log in to unmask]
22 Dec 1997 12:54:33 Sent information mail to [log in to unmask]
22 Dec 1997 12:54:33 Processing file 357109 from [log in to unmask]
22 Dec 1997 12:54:34 Sent information mail to [log in to unmask]
22 Dec 1997 12:54:53 Processing file 357111 from [log in to unmask]
22 Dec 1997 12:54:54 Sent information mail to [log in to unmask]
22 Dec 1997 12:54:54 Processing file 357113 from [log in to unmask]
22 Dec 1997 12:54:54 Sent information mail to [log in to unmask]
22 Dec 1997 12:54:54 Processing file 357115 from [log in to unmask]

No good.  I flailed around a bit and decided to try to catch a glimpse of
what the messages being sent by jcroteau were.  I did this by adding myself
to the LISTSERV sendmail alias.  [log in to unmask] informs me that I could
have done this another way also, which I'll also provide as it's probably
not as unix- (or sendmail-)centric:

>Given that you've served this user out (or so I recall from what you said
>earlier) it would be interesting to trap the incoming messages to see what
>exactly they are.  Can you add
>
>TRAPIN="[log in to unmask]"
>FILTER_ALSO="[log in to unmask]"
>
>to your go.user file and cycle the server?  [. . .]

After I did this I quickly received about a half-dozen emails from jcroteau
to listserv.  Here's a sample one:

>Return-Path: [log in to unmask]
>Received: from interlock.mgh.com (interlock.mgh.com [152.159.1.2]) by
>fox.earthweb.com (8.8.5/8.8.5) with SMTP id PAA10075 for
><[log in to unmask]>; Mon, 22 Dec 1997 15:55:26 -0500 (EST)
>Received: by interlock.mgh.com id AA24641
>  (InterLock SMTP Gateway 3.0 for [log in to unmask]);
>  Mon, 22 Dec 1997 15:55:06 -0500
>Received: by interlock.mgh.com (Protected-side Proxy Mail Agent-1);
>  Mon, 22 Dec 1997 15:55:06 -0500
>Message-Id: <[log in to unmask]>
>X-Mailer: ccMail Link to SMTP R6.00.02
>Date: Mon, 22 Dec 97 15:55:00 -0500
>From: "Jim Croteau"<[log in to unmask]>
>To: <[log in to unmask]>
>Subject: RE: Invalid request received from you
>Mime-Version: 1.0
>Content-Type: multipart/mixed; boundary="simple boundary"
>

Yes, indeed; jcroteau had an autoresponder set up to send blank messages to
anyone it received mail from.  And how does LISTSERV reply to such
messages?  With a message like this:

>Date:         Mon, 22 Dec 1997 15:57:42 -0500
>From: "L-Soft list server at EarthWeb, Inc. (1.8c)"
>              <[log in to unmask]>
>Subject:      Invalid request received from you
>To: Jacob Haller <[log in to unmask]>
>
>Your message is being returned to  you unprocessed because no command was
>found
>in the  message body.  LISTSERV expects  commands in the  body of  the
>message,
>rather than in the message subject, because some users have no control
>over the
>contents of the "Subject:" field on outgoing messages.
>
>------------------------ Rejected message (11 lines)
>--------------------------

Since no commands are actually being sent, SERVE user OFF does not apply.
(In fact it probably made things worse by setting up another, parallel,
mail loop.)  [I've suggested to [log in to unmask] that they might want to
extend what SERVE user OFF does to include cases like this in some future
release of LISTSERV.]

The only way I found to end this loop was to ask my site admins to block
mail from ccmaillex.dri.mgh.com, which I did (and which solved the
problem).  I also mailed jcroteau and his postmaster explaining the cause
of the problem.

Many thanks to LSOFT support, who continued to help me even after I started
to get somewhat snippy.

-jwgh