Mailbox limit message problem

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Dave Stiles

Mailbox limit message problem

Post by Dave Stiles »

Latest 1.54 download last night.

I'm trying to notify me as server admin when a user's mailbox becomes full. I set up a filter on "Where the message size is more than limit" to "Notify Address" (me), "Notify Sender" and "Forward message to specified recipient" (me).

The result was that for the next 30 minutes, until I caught the problem, ALL messages in ALL mailboxes were being actioned by the filter. Repeatedly. I have now disabled the filter.

Since the primary reason for upgrading was to send warnings to me, following a full customer mailbox on Friday, I would obviously appreciate some help on this one.

A secondary problem highlighted in testing this:

I set a 10K limit on a test mailbox and sent it three copies of a 9K message. The messages were sent from my desktop to the online ME server as an authenticated user. The target mailbox was on the same server. All messages arrived in the mailbox in full, with no error message generated.

Sending through another server got me, as sender, a "Mailbox full" message. There was no way of warning the "recipient" of the problem.

MailEnable-Ben
Posts: 5858
Joined: Fri Jan 16, 2004 6:49 am
Location: Melbourne

Post by MailEnable-Ben »

Hi,
Seems you are a little confused about the criteria "Where message size is more than limit" this is not calculating the total mailbox size. The criteria as mentioned above simply restricts message delivery through the system and an action can be completed on a message size that exceeds the set value. Remember also that the setting entered is in bytes.

A maibox will receive messages for around ten minutes before the message mailbox size is recalulated and messages are bounced. This is purely a performance issue and is only corrected in the Enterprise edition that uses mailbox indexing. The basic issue with Pro is to calculate immediate size each message in the inbox would be required to be enumerated/calculated on every message receipt for every mailbox and the obvious performance hindrance in this circumstance outweighs the ten minute wait time. We are currently reveiwing this and in the future a setting may find its way into the Admin program for this setting to be set.
Regards,

Product Services
MailEnable Pty Ltd

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Dave Stiles

Post by Dave Stiles »

Ok, Ben, I can go with that explanation concerning mailbox size, assuming that ultimately it does reflect the size at some recent point in time and the filter can be used against that criterion. It makes sense and I have no problem with it.

My primary concern, the main thrust of my message, is: why is a filter set up on the size criterion acting on ALL messages in ALL mailboxes regardless of their size, which in all cases (except for the test mailbox) were presumably already calculated through previous size updates and found to be well within range. The whole test took around 30 minutes before I discovered that customers' mail was being repeatedly re-sent (according to the logs, anyway) and I disabled the filter.

I also have a problem with the AV filter I set up. I asked for a notification of all deleted viruses to be emailed to me, but I'm not getting them - the attempt isn't even being made. Are filters acted on sequentially? That would make sense, in which case perhaps the message parameters are not available, since I set up Delete then Notify. Would that make sense?

It would be useful, by the way, if one could Edit existing filter criteria - or at least view their parameters. In truth I only have my own memory of what each is set to (eg: have I really set the email address correctly). Also be useful if one could move criteria to re-order them.

Dave Stiles

Dave Stiles

Post by Dave Stiles »

I would appreciate an answer to these two problems, please.

I am still not getting a notification of deleted viruses. Although I have set the Notify address there is no address shown in the relevant Filters TAB. The filter sequence is: Notify Recipient; Delete Virus (it was originally tried in the reverse sequence).

I still need to know why a filter specified for one mailbox was acting on all mailboxes. I can't experiment too much because it's a live server and I can't justify buying a second licence to apply to my test server.

There are a lot of things I would like to do but until I know what is happening (eg what I am doing wrong) I can't rely on the filters.

Dave Stiles

MailEnable-Ben
Posts: 5858
Joined: Fri Jan 16, 2004 6:49 am
Location: Melbourne

Post by MailEnable-Ben »

Please see answers within I found this was the best way to disect/understand your issues;

Q1 Why is a filter set up on the size criterion acting on ALL messages in ALL mailboxes regardless of their size, which in all cases (except for the test mailbox) were presumably already calculated through previous size updates and found to be well within range.

Dont really know what you mean here, the filter you are talking about does not have anything to do with quota settings as I mentioned earlier. Was this criteria set up at a mailbox level or server/post office level?

Could you show me the logs for this mail being re-sent and give more info;
Was it making it to the mailbox? Or was there an error? Where was the message being generated from was it a system generated message that was looping? There was any issue in 1.52 where the notification to the specified account in the actions could create a loop. But we thought this was resolved.

Q2. I am still not getting a notification of deleted viruses. Although I have set the Notify address there is no address shown in the relevant Filters TAB. The filter sequence is: Notify Recipient; Delete Virus (it was originally tried in the reverse sequence).
This email has to be created first the email address that the message sends to must be valid this does not have to be a valid account.

I still need to know why a filter specified for one mailbox was acting on all mailboxes
How did you specify that this was to happen on one mailbox only? Is it a mailbox specific filter? Please send more info on what you mean here.

For testing purposes you can download the latest version for testing and evaluate for 90 days this should be sufficient.

By the way if you need immediate responses you can log an email to support, possibly you will have to pay. The forum is designed as a discussion portal and answers are not so prompt.
Regards,

Product Services
MailEnable Pty Ltd

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Guest

Post by Guest »

Q1
the filter you are talking about does not have anything to do with quota settings as I mentioned earlier.
Sorry, I misunderstood the bit about mailbox size being calculated - I read your reply as saying that if a "mailbox" went over-quota... not if a message went over-size. What should one base the over-quota mailbox warning on, then?
Was this criteria set up at a mailbox level or server/post office level?
I think this may be where I'm going wrong. I ticked "This Postoffice" but as far as I recall I never got a prompt asking which one. I've had another look at this and can't find how to specify the post office. So yes, I now understand why it acted on all POs but not how to specify it.
Where was the message being generated from
10 messages were trapped in the half hour the filter was working. A typical filter log entry was:

12/11/04 15:20:34 Executed 2D8F48ACB50B4F2983A96BB58EEF1F.MAI SMTP MailboxFull NOTIFY_ADDRESS,FORWARD_TO_ADDRESS,NOTIFY_SENDER orders@xxx.co.uk 194.105.69.197

The IP in this case is my mail server and the eemail was generated from a web form on the same machine (online web server). Other examples were sent by authenticated users at home / office.

A short sample of the Activity Log below took 1 second and was repeated several times for that message. 5 or 6 other messages followed a similar pattern. I guess that each timed out on ten-loops-and-stop. I've left out most of the stuff for clarity. All target addresses were identical and all DATA lines said "Accepted for delivery". If you want me to send the full log(s) then email me an address to send to (email: mailenable (at) linkcheck.co.uk)

SMTP-OU 14821E79455D44A4978C5BF3FBF935.MAI 616 EHLO
SMTP-OU 14821E79455D44A4978C5BF3FBF935.MAI 616 MAIL
SMTP-OU 14821E79455D44A4978C5BF3FBF935.MAI 616 RCPT
SMTP-OU 14821E79455D44A4978C5BF3FBF935.MAI 616 DATA
SMTP-OU 87C6E926D9BC4710A7ECAF1439FF9.MAI 664 CONN
SMTP-OU 87C6E926D9BC4710A7ECAF1439FF9.MAI 664 EHLO
SMTP-OU 9305A09A42D64F7097D7EF53DB735B.MAI 596 CONN
SMTP-OU 87C6E926D9BC4710A7ECAF1439FF9.MAI 664 MAIL
SMTP-OU 9305A09A42D64F7097D7EF53DB735B.MAI 596 EHLO
SMTP-OU B19A09B8EFB459798D2E710EA3634.MAI 688 CONN
SMTP-OU 9305A09A42D64F7097D7EF53DB735B.MAI 596 MAIL
SMTP-OU B19A09B8EFB459798D2E710EA3634.MAI 688 EHLO
SMTP-OU DB6050259BFE4490B79C8AFA5F9FE.MAI 716 CONN
SMTP-OU DB6050259BFE4490B79C8AFA5F9FE.MAI 716 EHLO
SMTP-OU 9305A09A42D64F7097D7EF53DB735B.MAI 596 RCPT
SMTP-OU B19A09B8EFB459798D2E710EA3634.MAI 688 MAIL
SMTP-OU 9305A09A42D64F7097D7EF53DB735B.MAI 596 DATA
SMTP-OU DB6050259BFE4490B79C8AFA5F9FE.MAI 716 MAIL
SMTP-OU DB6050259BFE4490B79C8AFA5F9FE.MAI 716 RCPT
SMTP-OU DB6050259BFE4490B79C8AFA5F9FE.MAI 716 DATA
SMTP-OU 14821E79455D44A4978C5BF3FBF935.MAI 616 DATE
SMTP-OU 14821E79455D44A4978C5BF3FBF935.MAI 616 QUIT
SMTP-OU 9305A09A42D64F7097D7EF53DB735B.MAI 596 DATE
SMTP-OU 9305A09A42D64F7097D7EF53DB735B.MAI 596 QUIT
SMTP-OU DB6050259BFE4490B79C8AFA5F9FE.MAI 716 DATE
SMTP-OU DB6050259BFE4490B79C8AFA5F9FE.MAI 716 QUIT
SMTP-OU B19A09B8EFB459798D2E710EA3634.MAI 688 RCPT
SMTP-OU B19A09B8EFB459798D2E710EA3634.MAI 688 DATA
SMTP-OU 87C6E926D9BC4710A7ECAF1439FF9.MAI 664 RCPT
SMTP-OU 87C6E926D9BC4710A7ECAF1439FF9.MAI 664 DATA
SMTP-OU B19A09B8EFB459798D2E710EA3634.MAI 688 DATE
SMTP-OU B19A09B8EFB459798D2E710EA3634.MAI 688 QUIT
SMTP-OU 87C6E926D9BC4710A7ECAF1439FF9.MAI 664 DATE
SMTP-OU 87C6E926D9BC4710A7ECAF1439FF9.MAI 664 QUIT
SMTP-OU 369B5F463205482BA9814A4970E851.MAI 664 CONN

Q2
This email has to be created first the email address that the message sends to must be valid this does not have to be a valid account.
The sequence I now have in the TAB file is

1 F5FC6FDCE2494BC7AF422B13A1AFEFD6 NOTIFY_ADDRESS
1 75F9C444EE79480F8DD399002846868B DELETE Delete Message

That is the whole of it - there is no recipient address although I did specify a valid one (an ME account) when I saved the action record. I also specified the email template to use - the default AV one - which is not included in the TAB file either. I tried stopping / starting all ME activities but that made no difference.
download the latest version for testing and evaluate for 90 days
Thanks. I tried this once before and could not enable the bits I needed - at the time it was the third-party ME-Filter I was going to test (about 6-8 months ago). I'll try again.

Thanks for your help. Have a good holiday season!

MailEnable-Ben
Posts: 5858
Joined: Fri Jan 16, 2004 6:49 am
Location: Melbourne

Post by MailEnable-Ben »

As much as I try to refrain from saying this it really will help if you read the manuals regarding the quota and the filtering to get a better overall understanding of the workings. But to keep it simple the quota when enabled works to the inbox size of a mailbox and the settings are found on each mailbox including setting and level. Please note that there is around a 15 minute delay due to performance issues in Professional between the calculation of mailbox size in regards to quotas and the actual prevention of message delivery.

To enable quotas on a post office level click on a post office and in the right hand panel you will see a quota icon when this is set and applied all mailboxes within the post office will have a default quota set.

To enable quotas on a per mailbox level then go into the properties of the mailbox and set the quotas.

Within the Professional version filtering can only be enabled at a server level post office and mailbox is only available in Enterprise - sorry if I was not clear enough earlier.

Not sure what you mean by the looping in the activity log the conneciton looks fine from the information you have given, it is communication in the correct order and gracefully quiting on completion of the transfer.
Regards,

Product Services
MailEnable Pty Ltd

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Dave Stiles

Post by Dave Stiles »

Thanks for the resopnse, Ben.

I was aware of the quota setup in general terms, it was trying to filter on it that really gave me a problem. I'm gradually getting the hang of it now, though - time is a great problem here, as in lack of.

It seems that what I want to do - email a warning to me when a mailbox becomes full, isn't possible since quota isn't a filtering option. Fair enough, I'll await developments and hope.

I agree that each connection shown in the log did close correctly. It's just that there should only have been one entry, not several, per message: the term looping was perhaps inexact in that context.

Having had time to play since my last posting, and with reference back to your responses, I think I now have a much better idea of what I can expect from filters, although they still do not always do what I expect of them.

For example, a filter set up yesterday on recipient addresses within a given post office actioned all recipients in the post office, not just the ones contained in the Action record. On removing the post office criterion it worked exaclty as I required: luckily all addresses were at the post office domain only and not relevant to other POs. The impression was of an OR not an AND of the criteria - this is confirmed by the documentation. I'm about to search the forum / FAQs for further information on this but there seems to be no way to specify that a conditional filter should only apply to a single post office (eg if this set of words in subject for this postoffice only).

Anyway, Ben, Thanks again for your input on this. You've been most helpful.

MailEnable-Ben
Posts: 5858
Joined: Fri Jan 16, 2004 6:49 am
Location: Melbourne

Post by MailEnable-Ben »

Unfortunately filtering on a particular post office or/and at a mailbox level can only be done with the Enterprise edition. With the Ent version you can select and disable/enable filtering at all structural levels. At present you are correct the gates are OR but this will change in the future to include AND.

Cheers and glad to help.
Regards,

Product Services
MailEnable Pty Ltd

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Dave Stiles

Post by Dave Stiles »

Thanks, Ben, I look forward to the AND option. Presusmably it would take a mix of AND/OR within a single filter? With brackets to form more complex tests?

Shame it will only filter on POs in the Enterprise because it's a lot extra to justify just for that, since I don't need the other features it has.

Are there any other filters that don't work on Pro apart from "If associated with this post office"?

Could I suggest that if a feature doesn't work in a specific version then it should not be included?

Another suggestion: a NOT option, as in, "If these words are NOT in this field/whatever" or, in a more complex expression when AND is established, "if this AND that AND NOT that OR that."

MailEnable-Ben
Posts: 5858
Joined: Fri Jan 16, 2004 6:49 am
Location: Melbourne

Post by MailEnable-Ben »

No all other filters at this time will be available in the Pro version, and we havnt ruled out the poss of Domain level filtering being available in the Pro at some stage.

I think you may be confused the associated with this post office filter does work but this is not used in the way of filtering at a per post office level.

A NOT option may not be required when we have the right criteria along with the bypass filters option is included. Most messages that go through the system are labelled as spam after something is found not when something is not found.
Regards,

Product Services
MailEnable Pty Ltd

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Dave Stiles

Post by Dave Stiles »

Obviously a per-domain filter would be nice, but I'd be happy at a post-office level. You may be correct about me being confused. From the documentation (which is very sparse - a bit more explanation, preferably with examples, would help):
Where the message is associated with this postoffice

This criteria allows you to specify the owning postoffice of the transaction. Specifically, MailEnable will attempt to allocate an “Owning” postoffice for each message.
I take that to mean that a filter defined with the Post Office criterion would allow me to specify a specific post office on which the filter would work, where "post office" would be one of those listed under Messaging Manager / Post Office, to ensure it is not also applied to any other mailboxes for any other domain. I suspect that is what happens but without AND it's fairly impotent.

One application I have for it, for example, is for a mailing list where I do not want people posting attachments or html (common requirement for a mailing list). As far as I can see I cannot select a specific post office on which to apply the "remove attachments" filter since the criteria are OR'ed. At least, as far as I can tell that's how it functions.

MailEnable-Ben
Posts: 5858
Joined: Fri Jan 16, 2004 6:49 am
Location: Melbourne

Post by MailEnable-Ben »

You are right in everything you have said here David, and I guess it will be a matter of watch this space for the new features.

Cheers - Ben.
Regards,

Product Services
MailEnable Pty Ltd

To keep track of all ME company updates and version releases you should subscribe to the MailEnable list at http://www.mailenable.com or the RSS feed http://www.mailenable.com/rss.

delta2
Posts: 42
Joined: Mon Dec 20, 2004 7:25 am

Post by delta2 »

MailEnable Technical article ME020226 (see below) says that it is possible to notify the postmaster when mailbox quotas are exceeded. However I assume that this is NOT TRUE !

I've tried to achieve this using filters but I assume that the messages generated to inform the mailbox and sender are not passed through the MTA.

This feature would be very useful to help identify and prevent DOS attacks whereby mail boxes are intentionally filled.

Is there any workaround and/or when will this feature be added to Pro Edition ?



--------------------------------------------------------------------------
Quote from "http://mailenable.com/kb/Content/Articl ... D=me020226"

ME020226: What happens when mailbox quotas are exceeded?

The MMC is used to configure what happens when mailbox quotas are exceeded. You can access these options under the properties of the postoffice connector.

MailEnable allows two things to occur when a message is delivered to a mailbox that has exceeded its quota.
In general terms, MailEnable will allow you to either notify the sender of the message or to notify the postmaster.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------
Stuart

delta2
Posts: 42
Joined: Mon Dec 20, 2004 7:25 am

Post by delta2 »

It seems that I was wrong when I suggested above that the auto-generated message to infom the sender that the user's mailbox is full IS INDEED PASSED THROUGH THE MTA.

By setting up a filter to trap the text of the auto-generated message and to inform my email address I am able to be informed as to when a users mailbox quota is exceeded !
Stuart

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