Whats the max number of rules you can have in /etc/mail/spamassassin?

[Stephen Swaney]

> -----Original Message-----
> From: MailScanner mailing list [mailto:MAILSCANNER at JISCMAIL.AC.UK] On
> Behalf Of Michael Freeman
> Sent: Wednesday, May 12, 2004 3:16 PM
> To: MAILSCANNER at JISCMAIL.AC.UK
> Subject: Whats the max number of rules you can have in
> /etc/mail/spamassassin?
>
> We upgraded to the latest version of MailScanner just a few days ago,
> 4.30.x or whatever the latest version is. MailScanner has bee spawning
> processes that run out of control with as many as 7 and 8 processing
> sitting out there in TOP. I have been wrestling with defunct and load
> issues! Needless to say we are seeing hundreds of messages from
> Spamassassin in the logs dealing with timouts and failures.
>
> After looking at this closely i realized what was happening on our server.
> Spamassassin starts timing out, Mailscanner tries to compensate and both
> MailScanner and Spamassasin start spawning out of control. Why? Very
> simple. It seems that Spamassasin cannot handle too many rules
> in /etc/mail/spamassasin. My question is, how many rules are too many
> rules? I was running the following spamassasin rules from the list of
> Rules_Du_Jour
>
> BIGEVIL ANTIDRUG EVILNUMBERS BACKHAIR CHICKENPOX and about 4 others.
>

I run:

# BIGEVIL TRIPWIRE ANTIDRUG EVILNUMBERS SARE_ADULT SARE_FRAUD
SARE_FRAUD_PRE25X SARE_BML SARE_BML_PRE25X SARE_RATWARE

I had the same problems you are when I ran some of the very big
rules_du_jour rulesets.

Note that I have 1GB of memory & a Intel(R) Xeon(TM) CPU 2.80GHz (you don't
specify your hardware specs). I'd guess that the system is swapping and this
is the cause of the SpamAssassin time outs, not the number of rulesets.

I'm running all of the rules_du_jour rulesets rulesets on some customer
sites that have 2GB of memory installed with no problems.

Steve

Stephen Swaney
President
Fortress Systems Ltd.
Steve.Swaney at FSL.com


> And this is what is happening. MailScanner comes around, deliveries the
> msg, spamassassin chokes because it cannot handle the number of rules it
> has to look though then times out, logs an entry in the log then continues
> to timeout. Mailscanner spawns another process because its trying to
> deliver another message and the loop goes on and on until your CPU loads
> soar out of control.
>
> My question is what is the max number of rules we can place
> in /etc/mail/spamassassin?
>
> Im running the same number of rules on all my other server and we are not
> having load issues yet on this one server MailScanner + Spamassassin
> cannot
> work properly until i rm -f ALL THE RULES.
>
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>
> Fortress Systems Ltd.
> www.fsl.com
>



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This message has been scanned for viruses and
dangerous content by MailScanner, and is
believed to be clean.

Fortress Systems Ltd.
www.fsl.com

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