[vsnet-grb 331701] The GCN Notices and Circulars email problem

[Bacodine]

All GCN Notices and Circulars (email-based) recipients

(My apologies if you receive this 2 or 3 times;
I have to use all email lists within GCN to be sure.)

Five of you have notified me that you have not received
GCN Notices and/or Circulars for a few days.  And a couple
of you have provided snippets from your emails-received
system logfiles -- most helpful.

This problem only affected email-based recipients.  Socket-based
and VOEvent recipients had no problems.

The problem (via the logfiles) is that the GCN computer's name
that is sending the email to you reports only the machine
name -- not full qualified with the domain (ie "capella2",
not "capella2.gsfc.nasa.gov").    (This all transpires
in the SMTP in the "HELO" statement.)

This statement has been the same for more than 10 years within capella2/GCN.
Given the lack of change It very clear, the problem can not be due
to a change at the GCN end of things.  The speculation is -- and I repeat
that this is a speculation -- that your local institutions have responded
to a recent threat (possible the Petya malware) of last week.
And as such have stiffened entrance requerements for incoming email
by checking the "name" file in the HELO stement in the SMTP.
Whether Petya is or is not the motivations, it is clear
that some institutons have started checking this name/HELO statement
with a stiffer acceptance criteria.

We did some tests here/GCN to see if changing the "name" field
from "capella2" to "capella2.gsc.nasa.gov" in all out-going emails
would (a) cause any new problems, and (b) would it fix the problem.
It seems that the answer is yes to both, but it is hard to tell
given the small number of systems we can test against, and the 
large diversity of systems through the world.

Since about ~1pm today EDT (Jul 5th; 17:00 UT), GCN outgoing email
has had this change made in the HELO/SMTP transaction.
Please let me know of any problems: (a) still not getting emails
(Notices or Circulars) that you think you should have,
or (b) are now suddenly not getting emails that you have been
getting prior to 1pm today.

(Please note that this email problem is completely separate from
the problem on Sat and Sunday, which was due to an intermittant 
ethernet connection in the router closet.)

Sincerly,
Scott.


Scott Barthelmy                      NASA-GSFC, Code 661, Greenbelt, MD   20771
PHONE:  301-286-3106                 (office)       CELL:   301-346-3733
FAX:    301-286-0677                 (1st choice,  301-286-6765 2nd choice)
EMAIL:  sbarthel at milkyway.gsfc.nasa.gov
TEXT:   3013463733 at cingularme.com
WEB:    http://gcn.gsfc.nasa.gov/gcn


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