Mailscanner sends load sky-high on Debian

[Alex Pimperton]

Hi

I've been having a few problems recently with mailscanner going awol and
sending the load average sky high on my Debian testing box.

Looking at my ps output I see:

14662 ?        SN     0:00 /usr/bin/perl -I/usr/share/MailScanner
/usr/sbin/Mail
16595 ?        ZN     0:00  \_ [MailScanner] <defunct>
14758 ?        SN     0:01 /usr/bin/perl -I/usr/share/MailScanner
/usr/sbin/Mail
17982 ?        ZN     0:00  \_ [MailScanner] <defunct>
14952 ?        SN     0:01 /usr/bin/perl -I/usr/share/MailScanner
/usr/sbin/Mail
16664 ?        ZN     0:00  \_ [MailScanner] <defunct>
15207 ?        SN     0:01 /usr/bin/perl -I/usr/share/MailScanner
/usr/sbin/Mail
17303 ?        ZN     0:00  \_ [MailScanner] <defunct>
15696 ?        SN     0:00 /usr/bin/perl -I/usr/share/MailScanner
/usr/sbin/Mail
15770 ?        ZN     0:00  \_ [MailScanner] <defunct>
15748 ?        SN     0:00 /usr/bin/perl -I/usr/share/MailScanner
/usr/sbin/Mail
15985 ?        ZN     0:00  \_ [MailScanner] <defunct>
15771 ?        SN     0:00 /usr/bin/perl -I/usr/share/MailScanner
/usr/sbin/Mail
15867 ?        SN     0:00 /usr/bin/perl -I/usr/share/MailScanner
/usr/sbin/Mail
15986 ?        SN     0:00 /usr/bin/perl -I/usr/share/MailScanner
/usr/sbin/Mail
17432 ?        ZN     0:00  \_ [MailScanner] <defunct>
15998 ?        SN     0:01 /usr/bin/perl -I/usr/share/MailScanner
/usr/sbin/Mail
16012 ?        ZN     0:00  \_ [MailScanner] <defunct>
16013 ?        SN     0:01 /usr/bin/perl -I/usr/share/MailScanner
/usr/sbin/Mail
17169 ?        ZN     0:00  \_ [MailScanner] <defunct>
16028 ?        SN     0:01 /usr/bin/perl -I/usr/share/MailScanner
/usr/sbin/Mail
16618 ?        ZN     0:00  \_ [MailScanner] <defunct>
16063 ?        SN     0:00 /usr/bin/perl -I/usr/share/MailScanner
/usr/sbin/Mail
16676 ?        ZN     0:00  \_ [MailScanner] <defunct>
16074 ?        SN     0:01 /usr/bin/perl -I/usr/share/MailScanner
/usr/sbin/Mail
17361 ?        ZN     0:00  \_ [MailScanner] <defunct>
16525 ?        SN     0:01 /usr/bin/perl -I/usr/share/MailScanner
/usr/sbin/Mail
17314 ?        ZN     0:01  \_ [MailScanner] <defunct>
16596 ?        SN     0:00 /usr/bin/perl -I/usr/share/MailScanner
/usr/sbin/Mail
16619 ?        SN     0:01 /usr/bin/perl -I/usr/share/MailScanner
/usr/sbin/Mail
17448 ?        ZN     0:01  \_ [MailScanner] <defunct>
16663 ?        SN     0:01 /usr/bin/perl -I/usr/share/MailScanner
/usr/sbin/Mail
17210 ?        ZN     0:00  \_ [MailScanner] <defunct>
16665 ?        SN     0:00 /usr/bin/perl -I/usr/share/MailScanner
/usr/sbin/Mail
16677 ?        SN     0:01 /usr/bin/perl -I/usr/share/MailScanner
/usr/sbin/Mail
16699 ?        ZN     0:00  \_ [MailScanner] <defunct>
16688 ?        SN     0:00 /usr/bin/perl -I/usr/share/MailScanner
/usr/sbin/Mail
16700 ?        SN     0:00 /usr/bin/perl -I/usr/share/MailScanner
/usr/sbin/Mail
17170 ?        SN     0:00 /usr/bin/perl -I/usr/share/MailScanner
/usr/sbin/Mail
17211 ?        SN     0:01 /usr/bin/perl -I/usr/share/MailScanner
/usr/sbin/Mail
17390 ?        ZN     0:00  \_ [MailScanner] <defunct>
17304 ?        SN     0:00 /usr/bin/perl -I/usr/share/MailScanner
/usr/sbin/Mail
17945 ?        ZN     0:01  \_ [MailScanner] <defunct>
17315 ?        SN     0:00 /usr/bin/perl -I/usr/share/MailScanner
/usr/sbin/Mail
17362 ?        SN     0:00 /usr/bin/perl -I/usr/share/MailScanner
/usr/sbin/Mail
17391 ?        SN     0:00 /usr/bin/perl -I/usr/share/MailScanner
/usr/sbin/Mail
17406 ?        SN     0:00 /usr/bin/perl -I/usr/share/MailScanner
/usr/sbin/Mail
17433 ?        SN     0:00 /usr/bin/perl -I/usr/share/MailScanner
/usr/sbin/Mail
17449 ?        SN     0:00 /usr/bin/perl -I/usr/share/MailScanner
/usr/sbin/Mail
17946 ?        SN     0:00 /usr/bin/perl -I/usr/share/MailScanner
/usr/sbin/Mail
17983 ?        SN     0:00 /usr/bin/perl -I/usr/share/MailScanner
/usr/sbin/Mail

Is this normal? I have Max Children = 1 set in MailScanner.conf so why am I
seeing all these processes/threads?

When the load average goes up, stopping mailscanner (/etc/init.d/mailscanner
stop) fixes the problem.

I'm running 4.33.3, but I've had the same problem with unstable package
(4.34-1)

I'd appreciate any pointers!

Thanks

Alex

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