LOTS of sendmail processes

[Kevin Miller]

Andy Norris wrote:
> When I issue a service sendmail restart command, I get nine pids
> immediately, and it goes up from there. Way up most of the time.
> 
> I have lots of email that is not being scanned by MailScanner at all,
> and it's just the last few days this has been happening.
> 
> sendmail v8.12.11
> RHEL ES v3 (Taroon update 4)
> Avg load somewhere around 0.25 (goes to 0.60 and higher depending on
> time of day)
> Perl v5.8.0
> Using spamassassin v3.1.0
> This is on a machine running Ensim Pro 4.0.3-22.rhel.3ES

Are you using any milters?

The restart option shuts down sendmail and MailScanner, pauses for some
time - probably around 10 seconds - then starts them again.  If there
are any lingering sendmail processes it can cause, um, what's that
phrase?  Oh yeah, "unpredicable results".

Instead of a restart, do a stop, then issue:

	ps aux | grep sendmail 

Got any running sendmail processes?  Wait a few seconds and reissue the
above ps command and see if they're persisting...

...Kevin
-- 
Kevin Miller                Registered Linux User No: 307357
CBJ MIS Dept.               Network Systems Admin., Mail Admin.
155 South Seward Street     ph: (907) 586-0242
Juneau, Alaska 99801        fax: (907 586-4500