mail scanner stuck

[Glenn Steen]

On 12/04/06, Eduardo Casarero <ecasarero at gmail.com> wrote:
> hi gurus, i´ve two servers with the following configuration:
>
> Pentium IV - 3.2Ghz /800HT 775P Intel;
> Mother board P4 ABIT NI8-SLI/LGA/NVIDIA;
> 4096Mb RAM DDR2/533 Kingston;
> Winchester 160.2Gb - 7200 rpm SERIAL ATA Barracuda;
> video PCI Express X300 Radion 256Mb;
> network 10/100/1000;
>
> both of them run mail scanner/sendmail with spamassasin and clamav on
> Slackware 10.1. This servers started working two weeks ago, processing about
> 50.000 mails a day. I notice that if i do some "extra work" on the server
> like compressing log files, grepping large files the mail scanner stucks and
> starts queuing mails, the only way to put things ok is rebooting. I tried
> restarting services, stopping incoming sendmail, i´ve checked all
> configuration posible on server, (it has latest kernel). I´ve no idea of
> where to check or what to do. i´d apreciate your advice.
>
> Regards.
> Eduardo.
>
My gut instinct tells me that you're "IO-performance starved"... Have
you followed the excellent advice on performance tuning in the
wiki/maq (http://wiki.mailscanner.info/doku.php?id=maq:index#optimization_tips)?
Specifically the tmpfs and noatime tips will have an immediate effect,
if you are.

BTW, what OS/version are you running?

BTW2, It's been years since I last heard someone refer top a HDD as a
"Winchester". Simply wonderful:-).

--
-- Glenn
email: glenn < dot > steen < at > gmail < dot > com
work: glenn < dot > steen < at > ap1 < dot > se