Spamassassin cache loop

[Stephen Swaney]

> -----Original Message-----
> From: mailscanner-bounces at lists.mailscanner.info [mailto:mailscanner-
> bounces at lists.mailscanner.info] On Behalf Of Knut Bjornstad
> Sent: Tuesday, May 09, 2006 10:04 AM
> To: MailScanner discussion
> Subject: Spamassassin cache loop
> 
> On Mon, May 08, 2006 at 09:16:23AM -0400, Stephen Swaney wrote:
> >
> > > -----Original Message-----
> > > From: mailscanner-bounces at lists.mailscanner.info [mailto:mailscanner-
> > > bounces at lists.mailscanner.info] On Behalf Of Knut Bjornstad
> > > Sent: Monday, May 08, 2006 8:48 AM
> > > To: mailscanner at lists.mailscanner.info
> > > Subject: Spamassassin cache loop
> > >
> > > We have a problem with our MailScanner installations - a small part of
> > > the traffic get stuck in the Spamassassin cache and loops back to
> > > the hold queue for reprossessing. This happens to ordinary mail, I am
> > > not sure if any of them is spam. The loop is not infinite thou, most
> of
> > > the cases escape after a few hundred iterations. But there are som
> mails
> > > that has been stuck for months.
> > >
> > > We have quite a lot of mail going through our MailScanner filters, so
> I
> > > have not given this attention before the last days. But the load on
> the
> > > boxes (we have several running in parallell), kept increasing very
> > > slowly. I was not able to reset the cache in any way. My knowledge of
> > > SQLite and sql bases in general are very limited, but at last I
> managed
> > > to reset the base on one of the boxes by overwriting it with an empty
> > > base!
> > > This had no effect, the looping continued. At last I stopped it by
> > > removing the
> > > offending mails from the hold queue. Then the load (as reported by
> > > uptime) on the boxes fell immediately.
> > >
> > > Here is some obeservations I have made:
> > > The log gets lines like this:
> > > "May  8 00:08:04 xxxx MailScanner[882]: SpamAssassin cache hit for
> > > message A3C3B310132.D0C33" where the last part of the session-id
> varies
> > > as the mail is put back in the hold queue
> > >
> > > I have found no particular type of mail that gets caught - but all of
> them
> > > have
> > > a few MIME components.
> > >
> > > When I remove a mail, and then put it back in the hold queue, without
> > > any modification, it got sent immidiately!
> > >
> > > Our installation:
> > > postfix postfix-2.2.1 and 2.1.5 on Suse Linux (the behaviour occurs on
> > > both versions)
> > > MailScanner 4.50.15
> > > spamassassin 3.0.4
> > > ClamAV 0.88.1
> > >
> > > I wonder if this problem can be rectified by upgrading MailScanner, or
> > > by changing the cache parameters (but the config comment says you
> > > shouldn't ordinarily do this)
> > >
> > > I would appreciate any comment.
> > > --
> >
> > I believe this is a known problem which can be fixed by upgrading.
> >
> > Steve
> Do you know which change fixed this? I found nothing in the changelog
> since 4.50.15.

No but if you search the mail list you can probably find the answer. Might
have missed the Change Log. I'd just update to the latest version. It's
stable.

Steve

Stephen Swaney
Fort Systems Ltd.
stephen.swaney at fsl.com
www.fsl.com