Performance problems...

[Eric J Merkel]

See comments in-line...
----- Original Message -----
From: "Kevin Spicer" <kevins at BMRB.CO.UK>
To: <MAILSCANNER at JISCMAIL.AC.UK>
Sent: Friday, January 30, 2004 3:31 PM
Subject: Re: Performance problems...


> On Fri, 2004-01-30 at 19:49, Eric J Merkel wrote:
> > I've tried turning off all virus notifications and tweaked the
> > mailscanner.conf to process messages both in batch and in queue. While
in
> > batch mode, I also tried changing the number of messages in the batch to
> > process at any one time but it doesn't seem like mailscanner can keep up
> > with the number of incoming messages passing thru the system. I've also
> > lowered sendmail's logging level to 0, turned off fsync on
/var/log/maillog.
> > I tried splitting the mqueue.in directory into multiple directories but
> > couldn't get sendmail to drop the files into directories under
mqueue.in.
> > Yes I did change the sendmail startup command to change the incoming
queue
> > directory to mqueue.in/* and also in mailscanner.conf. So at last, I am
> > wondering what else I can try to improve the throughput of the system?
> >
>
> If you have not done so already try putting the MailScanner work
> directory (/var/spool/mailscanner/incoming) in tmpfs  (assuming memory
> isn't the issue of course).  I presume you are not using SpamAssassin?
>

No we are not using SA. I will look into mounting the MS incoming directory
on a tempfs. Do you have any recommendation on how much RAM I should set
aside for the tmpfs?

> I'd guess you are getting a lot of MyDoom related emails?  One problem
> this causes is messages to accounts that don't exist.  If you have
> MailScanner set to still deliver disinfected / cleaned messages then the
> bounces from these may cause extra load on your server.
>

I do not have it set to deliver cleaned/disinfected messages. I do have a
fair number of bounced spam messages from unknown user accounts on our
system. Right now I have a script clean out the mqueue every 10 minutes of
all invalid bounce messages.

> There were some useful sendmail rules (both subject and recipient)
> posted to the list which can help to block MyDoom.
>

I just joined the list today so I didn't get a chance to see those filters.
Do you have the subject of those messages so I can look them up in the
archive?

Thanks in advance,

Eric