mailscanner (Solaris 2.6) Could not open file

[Chang Kai Cheong]

On Mon, 9 Feb 2004, Spicer, Kevin wrote:

>
> Its probably been tipped over the edge by the MyDoom virus.  IIRC these limits
> apply to processes and their children, so...
>
> 5 mailscanner processes * 100 message batches * 2 queue files per message = 1000 files
> Then we've got the output header files (another 500 files), then any attachments/ bodies
> being scanned (say 2 parts per message maybe another 1000).  And thats before Spamassassin,
> file command etc.etc.  Okay I admit that maybe all of these aren't open at the same time -
> but you can see how quickly they can be used up when the server is busy.
>
> The very fact that taking the messages out of the queue clears the problem suggests it is a
> symptom of the number of files involved.
>

Actually, I suspected it was file descriptor problem and hence I lowered
the number of child from 10 to 5, max. message per scan from 100 to 80 and
increase the file descriptors as my first step.

However, I was confused by why MailScanner cannot restart successfully.
The first (and subsequent) child process would get the "Cannot create +
lock headers file" at retart of MailScanner.  I don't think the file
descriptors would be used up immediately upon the restart of MailScanner
(no message files should have been opened yet).

I will try further up the number of file descriptor to observe whether the
problem was still observed.

Thanks,
KC Chang