Preference for batch sizes

[Stephe Campbell]

Thanks all for the help. I dropped to 50 batch size and that has helped. I
will try 30 later today. I don't see any timeouts any where.

I am running SA 2.61 and the latest MS. No nameserver on this box but have
never had DNS problems with our own separate DNS servers. I just can't
figure why before Wednesday, backups of 2000 emails in incoming would clear
relatively quickly, but now, with incoming and new emails, it takes all day
(Maybe more new incoming than usual, as I mentioned, 25K more than usual).
Yesterday, it started at 10pm the prior night and didn't get back into the
under-10 range until about 7pm. Usually something like this clears in a
matter of minutes.

Steve Campbell
campbell at cnpapers.com
Charleston Newspapers


----- Original Message -----
From: "Ken Anderson" <ka at PACIFIC.NET>
To: <MAILSCANNER at JISCMAIL.AC.UK>
Sent: Thursday, February 12, 2004 10:54 AM
Subject: Re: Preference for batch sizes


> If the load avg is dropping, it's probably network timeouts in
> SpamAssassin. Are you running a current version of SA? Do you have a
> nameserver running on the same box? If no to either of these, that's
> where I'd start.
>
> Ken A
> Pacific.Net
>
> Stephe Campbell wrote:
>
> > We are seeing a real slow down in mail delivery here since yesterday. We
are
> > receiving about 50% more mail, but our system can't seem to keep up. Our
> > normal mail count is probably about 35K-50K a day. Spam percentage is
about
> > 85-90%.
> >
> > I have noticed the last two days a high rate of mail in incoming
beginning
> > around 10pm until midnight. When I look at my average load, it seems to
be
> > dropping linearly from 3 down to .6 or something like that. (Can servers
get
> > tired and need a rest?). Large incoming batches were always handled
fairly
> > quickly before this period, and I'm not sure if we're just slow or are
> > receiving a lot of new mail, but based on complaints, mail is slow.
> >
> > I have two questions:
> >
> > Would smaller batches of mail be better? I have this set to 100
normally,
> > and am testing 50 at the moment. I am guessing that smaller batch sizes
may
> > take less time to process and get them through faster as a batch, but
> > overall processing of total email may be the same or slightly slower.
> >
> > I have Max Children set to 5. Top shows 8-9 MailScanners running. Is
this a
> > problem or could it be multiple parents/children. This machine is pretty
> > much maxed out when this happens. Maybe lower the Max Children, or
increase
> > the Queue Scan Interval from 5?
> >
> > Any help and suggestions would be appreciated.
> >
> > Thanks.
> >
> >
> > Steve Campbell
> > campbell at cnpapers.com
> > Charleston Newspapers
> >
> >