MailScanner taking tons of cpu/mem and halting my server

[Jody Cleveland]

Hello,

I'm having some serious problems with MailScanner. I've got version
4.28.6-1 running on redhat 9. Over the weekend, my server was locked up,
so I had to cycle it off. When it came back up, I noticed it running
very slowly. Within about 10 minutes, it was completely locked up again.
I did a ps aux, and found MailScanner to be using tons of cpu and
memory. Any ideas as to why? Also, why is it listed so many times? If I
stop MailScanner, the machine runs fine. Strange thing is, I've been
using it for a little over a year without a problem.

Here is the output of ps aux:

root      2113  0.0  3.1 20172 16076 ?       S    09:20   0:00
/usr/bin/perl -I/usr/lib/MailScanner /usr/sbin/MailScanner
/etc/MailScanner/MailScanner.conf
root      2114  9.0  6.3 37572 32652 ?       S    09:20   0:16
/usr/bin/perl -I/usr/lib/MailScanner /usr/sbin/MailScanner
/etc/MailScanner/MailScanner.conf
root      2127 10.0  6.3 37576 32684 ?       S    09:21   0:17
/usr/bin/perl -I/usr/lib/MailScanner /usr/sbin/MailScanner
/etc/MailScanner/MailScanner.conf
root      2132  0.0  6.3 37556 32632 ?       S    09:21   0:00
/usr/bin/perl -I/usr/lib/MailScanner /usr/sbin/MailScanner
/etc/MailScanner/MailScanner.conf
root      2133  0.4  6.7 39608 34684 ?       D    09:21   0:00
/usr/bin/perl -I/usr/lib/MailScanner /usr/sbin/MailScanner
/etc/MailScanner/MailScanner.conf
root      2134  0.0  6.3 37556 32660 ?       S    09:21   0:00
/usr/bin/perl -I/usr/lib/MailScanner /usr/sbin/MailScanner
/etc/MailScanner/MailScanner.conf
root      2135  0.5  6.7 39608 34712 ?       D    09:21   0:00
/usr/bin/perl -I/usr/lib/MailScanner /usr/sbin/MailScanner
/etc/MailScanner/MailScanner.conf
root      2136  9.3  6.0 37560 31172 ?       S    09:21   0:15
/usr/bin/perl -I/usr/lib/MailScanner /usr/sbin/MailScanner
/etc/MailScanner/MailScanner.conf
root      2139  0.0  6.2 37544 32104 ?       S    09:21   0:00
/usr/bin/perl -I/usr/lib/MailScanner /usr/sbin/MailScanner
/etc/MailScanner/MailScanner.conf
root      2140  0.4  6.6 39596 34056 ?       D    09:21   0:00
/usr/bin/perl -I/usr/lib/MailScanner /usr/sbin/MailScanner
/etc/MailScanner/MailScanner.conf
root      2141  1.3  5.9 37540 30376 ?       D    09:21   0:02
/usr/bin/perl -I/usr/lib/MailScanner /usr/sbin/MailScanner
/etc/MailScanner/MailScanner.conf
root      2144  1.7  6.2 37560 31936 ?       S    09:21   0:02
/usr/bin/perl -I/usr/lib/MailScanner /usr/sbin/MailScanner
/etc/MailScanner/MailScanner.conf
root      2183  0.0  6.2 37544 31864 ?       S    09:23   0:00
/usr/bin/perl -I/usr/lib/MailScanner /usr/sbin/MailScanner
/etc/MailScanner/MailScanner.conf
root      2184  0.2  6.6 39596 33924 ?       D    09:23   0:00
/usr/bin/perl -I/usr/lib/MailScanner /usr/sbin/MailScanner
/etc/MailScanner/MailScanner.conf
root      2185  1.0  5.9 37540 30344 ?       S    09:24   0:00
/usr/bin/perl -I/usr/lib/MailScanner /usr/sbin/MailScanner
/etc/MailScanner/MailScanner.conf
root      2186  0.0  5.9 37540 30380 ?       R    09:24   0:00
/usr/bin/perl -I/usr/lib/MailScanner /usr/sbin/MailScanner
/etc/MailScanner/MailScanner.conf
root      2191 29.0  0.1  1516  580 ?        R    09:24   0:00 find
/var/spool/MailScanner/quarantine -type d ( ! -group apache -o -type d !
-perm 0770 ) -print

- Jody Cleveland