Just installed MailScanner

[Julian Field]

At 16:56 05/07/2002, you wrote:
>At 20:47 03/07/2002, you wrote:
>
> >> I've been running Mailscanner for some weeks now, and I got a report
> >> today that none of the email was being delivered. I noted that the
> mailscanner
> >> program wasn't running, so I started it back up. It uses up a bit of CPU
> >> time and spins around for a while (ending up with 200 items in the
> >> incomming/ directory) and then dies. If I run it in debug mode it does
> >> this:
> >>
> >> # ./mailscanner /var/spool/mailscanner/etc/mailscanner.conf
> >> In Debugging mode, not forking...
> >> #
> >>
> >> No message, nothing. Any ideas?
> >
> > Try changing the "Multiple Headers" option. On a few systems "append" can
> > make it core dump due to bugs in Perl itself. When you run it in debug
> > mode, has it actually reduced the number of messages in
> > /var/spool/mqueue.in?
>
>It hadn't, but I changed the Delivery Method to 'individual' and then it
>delivered some messages (there were 1100 in the queue) and started
>behaving itself.  I then switched off debug mode and it's been running for
>an hour now without a problem.

In debug mode, it doesn't fork and only does 1 pass, it doesn't go round
and get more messages.
I would switch on "Deliver in Background = yes"  if you haven't got it
already, and go back to "batch" mode at the same time.

> > Anything in the maillog?
>
>Nothing special.
>
> > There is a possibility that 1 message is killing it (this is very
> > unlikely but has been known). Set the number of messages per batch to,
> > say, 10 and re-run it. This should help you narrow down exactly what
> > message is causing the trouble, if this is the problem at all.
>
>That could have been the reason.
>
>What's the reccomended value for "Multiple Headers"?

Normally it should be "append", it's mainly useful for sites that have
multiple mail servers running MailScanner, so they can each write a
"X-MailScanner:" header value without overwriting previous ones. The
reg-exps to do it are pretty hairy though!

> >> PS- Where can I download the source for the mailscanner program?
> >
> > Errr... it's written in Perl. You've already got it :-)
>
>/me smacks head.  I hadn't thought of viewing the actual mailscanner
>program.

:-)
--
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