Too messages in Hold folder when spamassassin is activated in MailScanner

Glenn Steen glenn.steen at gmail.com
Thu Nov 29 10:46:17 GMT 2007


On 29/11/2007, Michael Mansour <micoots at yahoo.com> wrote:
> Hi Glenn,
>
> Glenn Steen <glenn.steen at gmail.com> wrote:
>  On 28/11/2007, Michael Mansour wrote:
> > Hi,
>
> >
> > Glenn Steen wrote:
> > On 27/11/2007, Israel Garcia wrote:
> > > On Nov 27, 2007 4:36 PM, Glenn Steen wrote:
> > >
> > > >
> > > > On 27/11/2007, Israel Garcia wrote:
> >
> > > > > On Nov 27, 2007 4:01 PM, UxBoD wrote:
> > > > >
> > > > > > So when disabling RBLs the problem disappears.
> > > > >
> > > > > No, the problem disapear when I turn off spamassassin completily in
> > > > > mailscanner config file. Sometimes I enable Spamassassin check but
> > > disable
> > > > > razor2, DCC and pyzor in spam.assassin.prefs.conf and it work
> better..
> > > BUT,
> > > > > if I fully enalbe spamassassin with DCC, razor2 and pyzor the load
> > > average
> > > > > begins to increase and thousands of mails begins comes to HOLD
> folder
> > ..
> > > Do
> > > > > you think it's time to split the load in two servers? I mean
> something
> > > like
> > > > > this:
> > > > > Router
> > > > > NAT rules to SMTP farm serves.
> > > > > I
> > > > > I
> > > > > ______________________________
> > > > > I I
> > > > > Server2 SMTP Server1 SMTP
> > > > > Mailscanner/sa Mailscanner/sa
> > > >
> > > > If the bottleneck is network-related/lookups.... this will buy you
> > > > nothing, unfortunately.
> > > I know, but how am I sure this is the cause of my problem?
> > >
> > :-) .... when you remove some load and the problem goes away:-):-).
> > How much memory/swap is used when these messages get queued and not
> > processed?
> >
> > I'm currently trouble-shooting a problem which does the same thing and
> have
> > tracked it down to the memory running out ie. mostly swap being used while
> > CPU's aren't (load average goes to 12 and 13 because of the heavy swap
> > usage).
> >
> > I'm organising more memory for the server at the moment, which should
> > resolve the issue.
> >
> > Regards,
> >
> > Michael.
>
> Good point. On the other hand, you could also look at a) Why does the
> memory run out, and b) what can you do about it.
> I run a perl script each morning which goes through my previous days maillog
> and counts all bandwidth used per domain for the previous day, then
> generates graphs out of that data.
>
> This process isn't something I'd like to get rid of which is why I want it
> to run and if I need to add more memory to preserve it's process then I
> should.

As said, I was pretty sure you knew where to look:-). And in that
case, more RAM _is_ the long term solution. Of course.

> If your MailScanner children eat up too much, one thing could be to
> lower the amount of children. If the childrens workers hang around
> waiting for slow responses, you might need look more closely on why
> Since you sent that email, I lowed the children to two and watch the morning
> run, instead of receiving 300 queued messages I only got a maximum of 15,
> and not delayed by 2 hours for delivery but by only 15 minutes.
>
> This is a good "work around" for now and as other mail servers handle the
> inbound workload too it's a good solution until the box gets a little more
> ram into it, so thanks for that suggestion.

You're wellcome. Sometimes when one stares at a resource problem, one
might fail to realise that in the "acute" situation... "less is
more":-):-).
Did a similar logic-fault recently with a severely overloaded Oracle
DB server... Offloading one instance (although relatively small, and
not that "intense":) to another server so that the "unmovable" top
consumer would have more RAM to work with (and thus do less physical
reads) turned out to be a ... lifesaver (the users were starting to
construct a gallows... figuratively speaking:-). But it took me quite
a while to ... see ... this simple interim solution (am in the process
of buying new DB iron...).

> that is... and correct that (in this case more RAM could be a very
> good aid, but still a band.aid where an amputation would be
> better;-):-).
> Anyway, I'm sure you know where to look, what to do:).
> Thanks for your suggestions Glenn, you're consistently a helpful individual
> :) .. I just wish now I could work out the movie file blocking issue (not
> blocking I mean) with the latest MailScanner.

Thanks, one aim to please:-).
About the file blocking problem... I've not been following that thread
(seemed like you had good attention from Mr Root:-).... You did do a
lint, just to see that the syntax is OK? And perhaps a few synthetic
tests? Have you looked at the raw messages, prior to MS? (You can
capture them by Archive... And just quarantining everything for
yourself should give you something too, although MS will have ...
decoded that a bit first).

> Michael.

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


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