MailScanner causing server to crash

[Richard Keech]

what value returns when you run

        cat /proc/sys/kernel/panic


if it is 0 then on a panic the system should wait indefinitely.
if it non-zero, then it will wait that many seconds.

if it is not a kernel panic that you are seeing, and it is
completely spontaneous with no log indication, then I'd
be inclined to think that the problem is hardware related;
either thermal or a memory problem.

On Mon, 2003-01-06 at 09:06, Bill Omer wrote:
> I do have a console on the machine, but the machine doesn't sit there
> dead, it power-cycles it's self.  That makes me want to believe that
> it's not a kernel panic.
>
> I'm going to try the version 3 series of mailscanner and see what kind
> of results I get with that.  Since it doesn't fork (as I understand it)
> it may not create such a load to cause the machine to reboot.
>
>
>
> On Sun, 2003-01-05 at 15:46, Richard Keech wrote:
> > Bill,
> >
> > Run the system in runlevel 3 so you have a text console.
> > This will better let you see what messages are generated
> > that might otherwise be lost.
> >
> > You need to determine if it is experiencing a kernel panic.
> > So the console messages at the time of the event are vital.
> >
> > I suspect the only involvement with mailscanner is the load
> > mailscanner places on the system.
> >
> > regards
> >
> > On Mon, 2003-01-06 at 08:25, Bill Omer wrote:
> > > I'm having a major problem with MailScanner (indirectly) and I am hoping
> > > that someone here may be able to help me with it.  It seems that when
> > > MailScanner (4.10) is running, the server tends to reboot.  However I
> > > don't believe that it is a problem with MailScanner.  I say this because
> > > the server is running on a RAID5 setup with a Mylex DAC960 controller
> > > with Barracuda SCSI drives.
> > >
> > > I suspect that the machine is rebooting due to the slowness of the RAID
> > > array.  I'm not exactly sure though, but I do feel that it is directly
> > > related.
> > >
> > > I'm currently running sendmail with spamass-milter with procmail to
> > > filter out and delete spam, but I would like to be able to filter
> > > viruses again.  I have tried disabling Virus Scanning and Spam Checks,
> > > with both disabled the machine still crashes.
> > >
> > > The crashes are random, sometimes the server will stay up and work
> > > correctly for a few days, sometimes it can't last an hour.  The machine
> > > its self is a quad Xeon 500MHz setup with a gig and a half of ram,
> > > running RedHat 8.0.  There is nothing in the log files to point anywhere
> > > since the machine is rebooting before it can write to syslog.
> > >
> > > Could anyone offer any insight on this problem?
> > >
> > > Regards,
> > > Bill Omer
> > >
> > --
> > G. Richard Keech        Chief Instructor / Senior Consultant
> > Red Hat Asia-Pacific    rkeech at redhat.com, richard at keech.cx
> > Melbourne Australia     http://people.redhat.com/rkeech
> > +61-419-036-463 mobile  +61-3-9370-5611 fax
> > Legal:  http://apac.redhat.com/disclaimer
>
--
G. Richard Keech        Chief Instructor / Senior Consultant
Red Hat Asia-Pacific    rkeech at redhat.com, richard at keech.cx
Melbourne Australia     http://people.redhat.com/rkeech
+61-419-036-463 mobile  +61-3-9370-5611 fax
Legal:  http://apac.redhat.com/disclaimer