Single process taking over?

Stephe Campbell campbell at CNPAPERS.COM
Tue Feb 17 20:59:09 GMT 2004


Mr. Field:

Thank you very much. I have updated clamav to 0.67, and SA to their latest
(one at a time, of course for testing purposes). Neither seemed to provide
much help, but turning off Bayes, so far has seemed to allow MS to keep up.

Again, my load average is back to it's normal range of 5.00+ whenever there
are emails to scan instead of spiralling down to sub 0.75 levels regardless
of what was in incoming. If only I had a machine where the lower range was
normal.

I will follow the list in the event something is found with the latest bayes
engine.

Thank you very much.

Steve Campbell
campbell at cnpapers.com
Charleston Newspapers

----- Original Message -----
From: "Julian Field" <mailscanner at ECS.SOTON.AC.UK>
To: <MAILSCANNER at JISCMAIL.AC.UK>
Sent: Tuesday, February 17, 2004 11:31 AM
Subject: Re: Single process taking over?


> Can you try switching off Bayes (use_bayes 0 in spam.assassin.prefs.conf).
> Then let me know if the problem recurs.
>
> Also, upgrade your SA to 2.63 in case you are seeing a bug in SA.
>
> At 15:31 17/02/2004, you wrote:
> >Mr. Field,
> >
> >I have been going through pretty much the same situation as described
with
> >this post. The exception is that my machine does not show a domineering
> >process and load average drops to near nothing. I have been trying to
change
> >sendmail to remedy this problem, but I may be looking at the wrong part
of
> >the puzzle. I have still not determined what is going on, but I do see a
lot
> >of Bayes lock files and one main bayes.lock file. It peaks once I see the
> >bayes_toks.new file which seems to stay around forever. I offer this only
to
> >maybe point things toward a solution.
> >
> >I am running
> >     MS 4.26.8-1
> >     SA 2.61-1
> >     ClamAV 0.65
> >     MailWatch 0.5.1
> >     Sendmail 8.11.6-27.73
> >     RH 7.3
> >
> >I upgraded MS on a Monday and MailWatch on a Wednesday. That week
problems
> >started happening. The problems seemed to be resolved by my removing my
> >Bayes files (you suggested poisoning, and this appeared to have been the
> >case), but since I must stop MS, remove all of the bayes lock files, the
> >bayes_tok.new file, restart MS and all appears fine. Load average climbs
to
> >normal to normal-high limits, my incoming backlog clears quickly and
> >everything is fine. I replaced my Message.pm file with the the one you
> >posted to the list, and that is the only other change I have made to the
> >above installed programs.
> >
> >I hope some common thread may appear from my configuration and what
others
> >describe to shed some light on this. Most people don't complain about
load
> >averages this low, but to me it signals a slow down in my mail system,
> >creating backlogs in the incoming queue.
> >
> >Thank you for your efforts, sir.
> >
> >Steve Campbell
> >campbell at cnpapers.com
> >Charleston Newspapers
> >
> >----- Original Message -----
> >From: "Julian Field" <mailscanner at ECS.SOTON.AC.UK>
> >To: <MAILSCANNER at JISCMAIL.AC.UK>
> >Sent: Tuesday, February 17, 2004 7:24 AM
> >Subject: Re: Single process taking over?
> >
> >
> > > At 11:38 17/02/2004, you wrote:
> > > > > -----Original Message-----
> > > > > From: MailScanner mailing list [mailto:MAILSCANNER at JISCMAIL.AC.UK]
On
> > > > > Behalf Of Julian Field
> > > > > Sent: Tuesday, 17 February 2004 8:36 PM
> > > > > To: MAILSCANNER at JISCMAIL.AC.UK
> > > > > Subject: Re: Single process taking over?
> > > > >
> > > > > Ah, a reproducible fault! I like those :-)
> > > >
> > > >I don't!!  :)
> > > >
> > > > > What does your MailScanner.conf look like? (just the interesting
bits,
> > > > > don't care what all the filenames of your reports are and stuff
like
> > > > > that).
> > > >
> > > >See below..
> > > >
> > > > > What virus scanner(s), SpamAssassin, etc?
> > > >
> > > >ClamAV, McAfee, Spamassassin 2.6.3, DCC, Razor
> > > >
> > > > > What is the last thing the runaway process logs before CPU
hogging?
> > > >
> > > >Nothing abnormal, just the process starting and mail being processed,
> >even
> > > >in verbose logging, it just appears to be a normal process that won't
let
> > > >the other threads have any resources.  If I kill it, the other
threads
> >spawn
> > > >and run as per normal.
> > > >
> > > > > Does the CPU hogging start the instant you start MailScanner, or
the
> > > > > instant the first child process runs, or when?
> > > >
> > > >As soon as mail begins to be processed.  If no mail is in the queue,
not
> > > >hogging, but the second any mail is in queue it's hogging.
> > > >
> > > >MailScanner.conf
> > > >============================================
> > > >Max Children = 4
> > > >Queue Scan Interval = 1
> > > >MTA = sendmail
> > > >Max Unscanned Bytes Per Scan = 100000000
> > > >Max Unsafe Bytes Per Scan = 50000000
> > > >Max Unscanned Messages Per Scan = 15
> > > >Max Unsafe Messages Per Scan = 15
> > > >Virus Scanning = yes
> > > >Virus Scanners = mcafee clamav
> > > >Virus Scanner Timeout = 300
> > > >Spam Checks = yes
> > > >Spam List =
> > > >Use SpamAssassin = yes
> > > >Max SpamAssassin Size = 90000
> > > >Deliver In Background = yes
> > > >Delivery Method = batch
> > >
> > > Do you reckon you could reproduce the problem on a box to which you
could
> > > give me login access? I suspect it's something very simple, but I have
> > > never witnessed it here and it's apparently not a common problem.
> > > --
> > > Julian Field
> > > www.MailScanner.info
> > > MailScanner thanks transtec Computers for their support
> > >
> > > PGP footprint: EE81 D763 3DB0 0BFD E1DC 7222 11F6 5947 1415 B654
>
> --
> Julian Field
> www.MailScanner.info
> MailScanner thanks transtec Computers for their support
>
> PGP footprint: EE81 D763 3DB0 0BFD E1DC 7222 11F6 5947 1415 B654



More information about the MailScanner mailing list