Users of RBL's

[Mark Presling]

Steve Campbell wrote:
> Chris, and all,
>
> ----- Original Message ----- From: "Mark Presling" <mark at presling.com>
> To: "MailScanner discussion" <mailscanner at lists.mailscanner.info>
> Sent: Thursday, June 29, 2006 6:58 AM
> Subject: Re: Users of RBL's
>
>
>> Hi Chris,
>>
>> Have you checked the size of your bayes database files? I used to have a
>> 1GB machine that SpamAssassin would regularly time out on because the
>> bayes DB would get too big from the auto learning. I had to tune it so
>> that the DB file would stay below 5MB or it just timed out scanning
>> larger messages. It also used up 100% of the CPU most of the time. I
>> used to manually expire old tokens from it as well, but that was before
>> MS started doing that automatically for me. Even on my newer server (2G
>> Pentium 4) I still restrict the size of the the bayes DB with
>> "bayes_expiry_max_db_size 400000". This seems to keep the DB at 
>> around 10MB.
>
> I assume this should go into spam.assassins.prefs file? And do I just 
> add this line and the next expiry will whittle the file down or do I 
> have to do something to the files first?
Yes that is correct. I am using MailScanner version 4.43.8 (~July 2005) 
and I put it at the end of /etc/MailScanner/spam.assassin.prefs.conf. I 
am in the process of preparing to upgrade to a newer version so can't 
confirm that this is still the correct approach. MailScanner 
automatically triggers the expiry, I don't have to do anything. Just 
make sure that MailScanner.conf contains something similar to this:

# If you are using the Bayesian statistics engine on a busy server,
# you may well need to force a Bayesian database rebuild and expiry
# at regular intervals. This is measures in seconds.
# 1 day = 86400 seconds.
# To disable this feature set this to 0.
Rebuild Bayes Every = 86400


>
> Thanks for any input.
>
> Steve
>
>>
>> Mark
>>
>> Chris Hammond wrote:
>>>>>> Sounds like you may just be asking too much of the hardware.
>>>>>>
>>>>> This could very well be.  Before I go asking for a new server 
>>>>> though, I want to make sure I have my ducks in a row.
>>>>> When this was nothing more than a Postfix box with static rules, 
>>>>> it handled the job just fine.  But I think it may
>>>>> be really working for it's living.
>>>>>
>>>> MailScanner and SpamAssassin do use a lot of resources. It looks to be
>>>> cpu bound, but that's a good thing usually! Any way to upgrade that
>>>> processor? To reduce CPU usage, tune/configure some software. Did you
>>>> read the performance tweaks section in the mailscanner wiki? To reduce
>>>> disk writes, setup syslog to log to another box, or put mysql on 
>>>> another
>>>> box, or throw another cheap ide drive into the box and log to it,
>>>> instead of the mirrored drives.
>>>>
>>>
>>> I was beginning to feel the same way.  The DL-145 is a dual 
>>> processor capable box
>>> so I will see about adding a second processor to it.
>>>
>>> I did go through the tweaks section on the wiki.  My next thought 
>>> was moving MySQL to
>>> another machine.  There is no more room for another drive so that is 
>>> not an option
>>> unfortunately.  I am going to move the MySQL server to another box 
>>> tonight and see what
>>> that gains me.
>>>
>>> Thanks
>>> Chris
>>>
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>>>
>>> Before posting, read http://wiki.mailscanner.info/posting
>>>
>>> Support MailScanner development - buy the book off the website!
>>>
>>>
>>
>> -- 
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>>
>>
>
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>
>

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