queue gets backed up frequently

[Chris W. Parker]

hi everyone,

i've been having this problem with mailscanner for quite a while now and
i haven't been able to pinpoint the cause so i'm hoping someone can help
me out with it.

what happens is the following:

on monday, wednesday, and friday the incoming mail queue gets backed up
(sometimes hundreds of mails at a time) and continues to accumulate
mails until, like magic, all the mail in processed in a matter of
minutes.

so far i have not been able to determine what is causing this.

my MailScanner.conf file can be found here
http://filter.swatgear.com/~cparker/ms.txt.

some graphs can be found here http://filter.swatgear.com/mrtg/. as you
can see, the "clog" happens on monday, wednesday, and friday but at
differnt times in those days too. so it's not completely consistent.
also, i have not been able to determine what is tying up resources
during those times. i've tried looking through the cron directories and
using top, but i'm not linux expert so nothing has caught my eye yet.

note that this server only has 64mb of ram. an upgrade is possible but
i'd like to avoid it if i can.


i would appreciate any help anyone can offer.



thanks,
chris.