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Subject: "local" crashes with signal 11 (with attachments this time)
From: Gordon Smith (gordon.smithune.edu.au)
Date: Sun Jun 25 2000 - 21:28:38 CDT

[Sorry folks. This is the correct version of my mail. This one comes
with attachments]

I'm seeing "local" crash via signal 11:
  ... postfix/master[19496]: warning: process /var/local/postfix/libexec/local pid 30043 killed by signal 11

After turning on verbose logging for "local" I believe the problem to
linked to the following conditions:

1) userA has a .forward file containing:
        \userA, "|vacation userA"

  AND

2) An alias file includes:
        userB: userA

  AND

3) userA and userB are about 1000 entries apart in an :include: file
   which is pointed to from an alias file:
        mailinglist-outgoing: :include:/lists/mailinglist

[I've not tested the relevance of this latter condition yet].

With the .forward file in place "local" loops until it presumably runs
out of memory giving a segmentation fault.

The nett result is that processing of the problematic mailing list fails
(about 1400 subscribers). The queue is later re-run (with tens of
complaints from end-users about duplicate mails being received), failing
again.

However, if I remove userA's .forward file then all is OK - the mail is
successfully delivered. I haven't observed this problem on a different,
smaller list (600 subscribers) where userA and userB are only about 230
entries apart in the :include: file.

I was running postfix-19991231-pl06 then upgraded to -pl08 with the same
effect.

I've attached the relevant log entries if anybody with a better
knowledge of postfix internals wishes to comment.

If nobody has seen this before (ie I've not done something dumb) I'll
investigate a bit further when I get some time.

Thanks,

Gordon