Some questions while I plan my redeployment/reinstall

[Scott Silva]

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Chris W. Parker spake the following on 9/8/2005 2:10 PM:
> Scott Silva <mailto:ssilva at SGVWATER.COM>
>     on Thursday, September 08, 2005 1:01 PM said:
> 
> 
>>>I'm planning to do a complete reinstall using the latest software
>>>that make up a good MailScanner box. My Linux distro will be FC4 and
>>>my MTA will be sendmail.
>>
>>Maybe a RHEL clone like Whitebox or CentOS would be more appropriate
> 
> 
> I don't know enough about RHEL (and it's clones) to know why this might
> be a good idea. Could you tell me a little more please?
> 
> 
>>Might be tight on ram if you want to do spam scanning, virus scanning,
>>etc... but it might do with a minimum of children in MailScanner.
>>It would depend on the processor and i/o speeds.
> 
> 
> I see.
> 
> MSMRTG says that the server has an average of 7% CPU Utilization (for
> the past year with very consistent usage throughout) and load average is
> only an average of 0.1 (for the year as well).
> 
> Here's the output from free:
> 
>              total    used    free  shared  buffers  cached
> Mem:        255384  220580   34804       0    58668   75688
> -/+ buffers/cache:   86224  169160
> Swap:       264560   15968  248592
> 
> Does this info help indicate at all what I might be able to handle in
> the future?
Seems ok right now, what OS is on current system?
You could try cat /proc/cpuinfo
That will give you the processor details

and df for storage space


> 
> 
>>>2. Currently I use MailScanner-MRTG to get an idea of what's
>>>happening with my box. Is MailWatch a complete replacement for
>>>MSMRTG or should I install both? And what about Vispan, how does
>>>that compare? 
>>
>>I run all of them. They have different uses and give different info.
> 
> 
> Would you mind explaining a little about what those differences are?

MailWatch gives you fine grained access to the different aspects of
managing the mail system. It lets you release or train the system on
your mailbase.
MRTG gives you many useful graphs of system performance and activity,
and Vispan can auto blacklist systems that send you a lot of spam or
viruses. IMHO they all serve a purpose.
Just like buying a hammer, even though they all serve the same basic
purpose (hitting things), the local home center will have many different
hammers to choose from, and the right tool in the right job is a
blessing, not a curse.
Especially if the hammers were all free, and just took a little time to
get them.

> 
> 
>>If you could find some memory in a donor machine or something, it
>>might make things better.
> 
> 
> I'll see what I can do. I might have some laying around.
Even another 128 Meg stick can make a difference.
And Linux will try and use every bit of the memory, just because it is
there. Processes in memory are MUCH faster than processes in swap, no
matter how fast your I/O is.
> 
> 
>>On my current system, log rotation gives the
>>biggest spike in activity.
> 
> 
> Same with me.
> 
> 
> 
> Thanks,
> Chris.
> 


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