Urgent: MailScanner apparently stopped processing...

[Ron E.]

On Fri, 9 May 2003, Julian Field wrote:

> At 08:01 09/05/2003, you wrote:
> >On Fri, 9 May 2003, Julian Field wrote:
> >
> > > At 19:25 08/05/2003, you wrote:
> > > >I'm hoping someone can shed some light on this one - recently I had
> > > >MailScanner which I've implemented on RedHat 8 w/Postfix just yesterday,
> > > >abruptly stop processing mail.
> > > >
> > > >I only happened to notice as the only indication was that no mail was
> > > >passing through to my internal mail/pop servers, etc.
> > > >
> > > >When I checked the maillog I found only entries from the postfix demon
> > > >that receives incoming mail, nothing from MailScanner or the postfix demon
> > > >that then delivers what MailScanner gives it. All processes including the
> > > >MailScanner processes were running - in fact, MailScanner was using a
> > > >majority of cpu time. I tried manually starting up MailScanner and found
> > > >that this fact of "MailScanner starting" and "xxx messages found to be
> > > >scanned" did show up in the maillog, however, no other change, mail did
> > > >not start to flow.
> > > >
> > > >I finally restarted the server and then everything started to move.
> > >
> > > But was it scanning after you restarted?
> > >
> >
> >Yes, it was scanning after I restarted, however it was using max of both
> >CPUs in my system. After letting it run that way for awhile, I used
> >check_mailscanner to find it's PIDs, then I killed it and restarted and
> >then the CPU use was more normaly.
> >
> > > Have you use redhat-switchmail-nox to set which email system RedHat thinks
> > > it is trying to run?
> > >
> >
> >Yes, this is set on postfix
> >
> > > >So, based on this I have a few questions:
> > > >
> > > >1. Any ideas why this happened and how can I prevent it and also does
> > > >anyone have any scripts out there that detect this kindof thing and then
> > > >cleanly shut down mailscanner and restart it?
> > > >
> > > >2. I realized I don't even know how to cleanly shut down MailScanner
> > > >manually. This may seem a stupid question but if someone could answer it
> > > >that would be great.
> > >
> > > service MailScanner stop
> > >
> > > You can do "service MailScanner" to get a list of the command options you
> > > can give it.
> > > Does "service MailScanner start" work cleanly, or does it output any
> > errors?
> > >
> >
> >I get: bash: service: command not found
>
> In which case you are using "su" and not "su -". Always use "su -" as it
> sets up the root environment properly. All sorts of strange things can
> happen when you just use "su".
>

Ah, thanks for the tip - when I do su - I get: MailScanner: unrecognized
service

> >This may be because when I first installed MailScanner, it would hang on
> >startup - I had to boot in single user mode, & rename the MailScanner init
> >script in init.d - additionally my incoming postfix was not starting
> >automatically either, so I added the postfix.in startup command and
> >check_mailscanner to rc.local. I think what was happening before that is
> >that MailScanner was trying to start before both postfixes were starting.
> >
> > > >4. I have an error message repeatedly showing up in the maillog that I
> > > >have been unable to discover the cause of. It is:
> > > >smtp MailScanner[xxxx]: Batch: Found invalid queue file for message xxxxxx
> > >
> > > For some reason it thinks one of your incoming queue files is corrupt. It
> > > needs to be able to find the sender and recipient addresses, and the last
> > > hop IP address, in the file it lifts from the queue.
> > >
> > > Can you send me one of the files from /var/spool/postfix.in/deferred that
> > > exhibits this problem.
> > > Then I can improve the Postfix parser to stop it happening again.
> > > --
> > > Julian Field
> > > www.MailScanner.info
> > > MailScanner thanks transtec Computers for their support
> > >
> >
> >On the invalid messasge, is it save to remove it out of the deferred
> >directory? If it is the only thing in it's folder, is it also safe to
> >remove the folder?
>
> Remove the message, but don't remove the folder.
>

Ok, good.

> >  I checked and the message looks pretty mangled... but
> >then again I'm not sure how readable the files in that format are supposed
> >to be.
>
> The Postfix format is not meant to be human-readable. I know what it's
> supposed to look like.
>
> >Also, any ideas on why postfix.in is doing all it's timestamps in UTC
> >while postfix & MailScanner are not?
>
> Are you starting one as being "properly" root, and starting the other after
> just doing "su"?
> That would probably cause it.

No - the only difference is that postfix.in is started with:
/usr/sbin/postfix -c /etc/postfix.in start
which is in rc.local

Other than that, the two postfixes have nearly identical config files...

> --
> Julian Field
> www.MailScanner.info
> MailScanner thanks transtec Computers for their support
>