Subject: 404 for some mbox archives

From: Tomas Vondra <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 11 Mar 2013 21:41:34 +0100

Hi,

I'm getting 404 when attempting to download some of the mbox archives.

For example

  http://www.postgresql.org/list/pgsql-admin/mbox/pgsql-admin.199805

works just fine, but this

  http://www.postgresql.org/list/pgsql-admin/mbox/pgsql-admin.199804

fails with 404. Attached is a list of more such examples.

BTW how does this (mbox archives behind authentication) protect us
against spam?

regards
Tomas

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---

From: Magnus Hagander <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 12 Mar 2013 11:04:13 +0100

> fails with 404. Attached is a list of more such examples.

That one simply does not exist.

Why? Because we generate the links to the mbox files based on the
dates of the emails. Clearly we have messages from 199804 that are in
a mbox file from a different date :O

I guess we need to add a check that the file actually exists as well,
and make no silly assumptions about emails being in the correct file
:)

> BTW how does this (mbox archives behind authentication) protect us

Not sure how much it does, but at least now a bot has to spend a bit
more work to actually be able to download it. Most of them likely give
up. And it also keeps people from complaining a bit :)

-- 
 Magnus Hagander
 Me: http://www.hagander.net/
 Work: http://www.redpill-linpro.com/

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From: Alvaro Herrera <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 12 Mar 2013 11:12:14 -0300

> a mbox file from a different date :O

It seems that back then list boundaries weren't as clearly defined as
they are now.  I checked the emails listed as being in Oct. 1999 (I
think; maybe it was Sept) and the headers had "To: [email-masked]"
instead of pgsql-admin.  There were only two of them.  They were close
to the end of the month (say on the 28th and 29th or something like
that) so maybe they ended up in next month's mbox because they were
delayed because of the resending, or something like that.

I know we used to get email to [email-masked] and Marc
customarily resent them to pgsql-hackers, for example.

-- 
Álvaro Herrera                http://www.2ndQuadrant.com/
PostgreSQL Development, 24x7 Support, Training & Services

---

From: Magnus Hagander <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 13 Apr 2013 17:21:30 +0200

>> a mbox file from a different date :O

Sorry about the delay in this, a fix has been pushed so we're no
longer generating mbox links to files that don't exist.