MailScanner restarting w/ virus updates when using SAVI

[Julian Field]

At 22:59 27/04/2003, you wrote:
>I just started using SAVI and I've noticed that MailScanner is now
>restarting hourly instead of every 4 hours.  It seems that MailScanner
>is restarting when it notices new virus definitions and since the Sophos
>update script runs every hour MailScanner is restarting that
>frequently.  Is this normal?  Something to do with SAVI being a perl
>module and not a standalone program?  Sorry if this is a stupid
>question, I guess I'm just curious...

When MailScanner starts communicating with the SAVI library, it has to bind
to the SAVI shared library ".so" file. In order for it to take advantage of
every update, and not just carry on using old code, it has to rebind to the
library whenever updates are installed. The only way for this to happen is
for the child processes to commit suicide when they see the installation
updated. Then they are re-spawned by the parent process, and it all carries
on processing mail.

It hits the logs a bit every time this happens, but it shouldn't cause any
great problem. Scanning will be slowed down a bit for 30 seconds or so
while the children are re-spawned, but hopefully that is the only
side-effect. The increase in speed provided by using the SAVI library
should easily outweigh the overhead of restarting when Sophos updates are
applied.
--
Julian Field
www.MailScanner.info
Professional Support Services at www.MailScanner.biz
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