Hello,
The cron job that sends email notifications is sending thousands of blank emails each night to the technical contact email address. It is definitely coming from the cron job, because they are all coming at around the time the cron job runs, and it stoppped happening when we disabled it. We are using Moodle 1.9 (build 20080514).
Thank you for any help you can provide.
First, suggest upgrading Moodle to 1.9.12 - highest/most secure of the 1.9 series.
Really need more specific information concerning your server - remotely hosted? platform? etc., but ... here's the first 'stab in the dark' and a couple of things to check with current version:
1. using one of those 'blank messages', view the full header of the message to verify they are indeed coming from moodle server. Header should show ALL the mail servers involved in that specific message in reverse order ... ie, look at the bottom of the mail servers list to see which was first. Obviously, there should be some content in the message, so there is something wrong. Do these 'blank messages' have a subject line? IF so, what does subject line say?
2. is the admin user subscribed to any forum? If so, un-subscribe.
3. is the Moodle set to notify Admin user of failed logins?
Site Admin menu -> Security -> Notifications
Email login failures to: Nobody OR leave notifications going to Administrator and set the number threshold to higher than 1 IF it's set to 1.
That *might* stop the 'flood' of EMail, but server might actually have more serious issues - thus upgrading might be the only way to resolve or assure that it's NOT a Moodle issue, but something related to system config for EMail or cron.
'spirit of sharing', Ken
Hi. Sorry for the lack of reply, but where things get tricky is I manage Moodle itself and a very small subset of the processes of the server (I work for an academic unit in at our college), and IT manages everything else.
I don't have much of a choice in upgrading. Much of the rest of the University is migrating to another LMS, which we've been given a year to do as well before we're forced to give up Moodle, so I don't see them upgrading anything in the future, unfortunately.
Also, as I mentioned, I have little control over the server. It is hosted in-house, running RHEL4.
1. I have no control over the admin mail account, or the mail server. I've asked them to forward me copies of these messages with headers in tact and got no response. (This is why I've waited a week to respond to your message... I was hoping they'd send me something.)
2. I disabled the email address on the admin account thinking it was a subscription email, but the emails came.
3. The failed login notifications were already set to nobody.
Are there any other places inside Moodle that I'm missing for notification? I set the support email under Server > Email to empty, even though that just looks like it's meant to be displayed for other users and not actually send anything out.
I am confident that it is actually coming from the moodle server because it only happens when the cron job is enabled, and I know the machine is firewalled securely that nothing else can get in. But, as I said, I'm awaiting info from our sysadmins to prove this as fact.
Thanks for the suggestions. I realize, without all the info, there isn't a ton you can do... hopefully I'll here from our sysadmins in IT soon.
