[nwp: Re: Any clue on this one?]

[Kelly Hamlin]

32591 root       0   0  9820 9820  1728 S     0.0 15.6   0:00 mailscanner
32595 root       3   0     0    0     0 Z     0.0  0.0   0:00 mailscanner
<defunct>


i notice that sh occaisionally goes defunct also.
i also notice when i turn spamassassin OFF it works. What i dont understand
is why. I havent changed anything in the last couple weeks, so any help
would be great.

Thanks
kelly
----- Original Message -----
From: "Nick Phillips" <nwp at LEMON-COMPUTING.COM>
To: <MAILSCANNER at JISCMAIL.AC.UK>
Sent: Tuesday, March 19, 2002 8:47 PM
Subject: [nwp: Re: Any clue on this one?]


> On Tue, Mar 19, 2002 at 07:44:38PM -0500, Kelly Hamlin wrote:
>
> > nothing. I would continuously do ps -x to see what its doing, then
>
>
> ps tells you the status of a process (often "S", can be "R", "D"...)
> Any idea what this was most of the time?
>
> "top" is usually slightly more useful than "ps".
>
> And if you really want to know what a process is doing, then you need to
> trace what it's actually doing. On linux, you use "strace" or "ltrace".
>
> On Solaris, you want to look at "truss".
>
> These tools will tell you what system/library calls a program is making,
> which will tell you what's holding it up.
>
>
> Other than DNS holdups and long timeouts waiting for the virus scanner to
> finish, I don't know of anything that's likely to cause mailscanner that
> kind of problem.
>
> It does sound like it may have been one "awkward" message causing the
problem
> though -- that would explain why it suddenly fixed itself.
>
>
> Cheers,
>
>
> Nick
>
> --
> Nick Phillips -- nwp at lemon-computing.com
> You never know how many friends you have until you rent a house on the
beach.
>