Problems calling SpamAssassin

[Julian Field]

At 22:00 11/02/2002, you wrote:
>I have set the skip_rbl_checks

You did remember to uncomment the line, didn't you? It's commented out in
the standard distribution of SA.

>, changed the scores for the rbl tests to 0,
>commented out the rbl checks from the header test cf file and it is still
>taking about 2 seconds per message to process messages when using
>mailscanner in conjunction with spamassassin.

What RBL lists are you using in MailScanner?

>Setting the max batch size to 30 resulted in the following times for
>processing batches:
>
>Batch 1 - 58 seconds
>Batch 2 - 70 seconds
>Batch 3 - 63 seconds

I can only think you have slow DNS lookups. Also be warned that SA will
only re-read your config files when MailScanner does a restart (by default
every 4 hours) unless you kill it and re-run it.

>Changing the max batch size drastically affects the time it takes to process
>the batch, as if the spamassassin checks are done serially and as if there
>is some overhead involved in the process. Also, checking with ps shows a
>maximum of (2) mailscanner processes running at the same time. Is there
>anything else we can do to speed up this process or perhaps have more
>instances running at a time?

Not really, other than what I have suggested above.

>We *really* love the products and our owners are willing to make a
>contribution to both projects should we be able to make use of them together
>and if you are able to provide a receipt.

I'm trying to think of every possibility...
Slow DNS, or DNS Lookups you aren't allowed to do (RBL services you aren't
paying for, etc.) sounds like the most likely to me.

>----- Original Message -----
>From: "Youn Gonzales" <ispmgr at CLAS.NET>
>To: <MAILSCANNER at JISCMAIL.AC.UK>
>Sent: Monday, February 11, 2002 2:36 PM
>Subject: Re: Problems calling SpamAssassin
>
>
> > I set the skip_rbl_checks option, but SpamAssassin still slows everything
> > down to a crawl. It takes over 3 minutes for a batch of 50 messages. I
>think
> > SpamAssassin is timing out for some reason. Are there any other settings
>or
> > perhaps ports on the firewall necessary for SA to work properly?
> >
> >
> > Youn Gonzales
> > System Administrator
> > Comptia A+, Network+, INET+,
> > Cisco CCNA/CCDA Certified Technician
> > Microsoft Certified Professional
> >
> >
> > > Sounds like you've got DNS resolving problems. Have you tried the
> > > skip_rbl_checks option in SpamAssassin? It's in the user_prefs file.
> > > MailScanner calls the SpamAssassin Perl API and therefore does not use
>the
> > > "spamassassin" script or spamc/spamd.
> > > --
> > > Julian Field                Teaching Systems Manager
> > > jkf at ecs.soton.ac.uk         Dept. of Electronics & Computer Science
> > > Tel. 023 8059 2817          University of Southampton
> > >                              Southampton SO17 1BJ

--
Julian Field                Teaching Systems Manager
jkf at ecs.soton.ac.uk         Dept. of Electronics & Computer Science
Tel. 023 8059 2817          University of Southampton
                             Southampton SO17 1BJ