Weird Problem with MailScanner

UxBoD uxbod at splatnix.net
Fri Oct 19 18:42:25 IST 2007


Stop MS using the init.d script.

Then run MailScanner --debug

and see what it does

Regards,

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----- Original Message -----
From: "Damian Rivas" <damian at cht.com.ar>
To: "MailScanner discussion" <mailscanner at lists.mailscanner.info>
Sent: Friday, October 19, 2007 5:38:52 PM (GMT) Africa/Casablanca
Subject: RE: Weird Problem with MailScanner


1) There are 3 MS childs running
2) How do I run MS on debug mode? Sorry for the ignorance, I'm newbie
yet.
3) Attached.
4) 2413 pts/0    S+     0:00  \_ grep MailScanner
CPLUS_INCLUDE_PATH=/usr/lib/qt/include
MANPATH=/usr/local/man:/usr/man:/usr/X11R6/man:/usr/lib/java/man:/usr/li
b/qt/doc/man:/usr/share/texmf/man HOSTNAME=ns4.cht.com.ar TERM=xterm
SSH_CLIENT=200.55.14.250 58852 22 WINDOW_MANAGER=metacity OLDPWD=/etc
QTDIR=/usr/lib/qt SSH_TTY=/dev/pts/0 USER=root
LS_COLORS=no=00:fi=00:di=01;34:ln=01;36:pi=40;33:so=01;35:bd=40;33;01:cd
=40;33;01:or=40;31;01:ex=01;32:*.bat=01;32:*.BAT=01;32:*.btm=01;32:*.BTM
=01;32:*.cmd=01;32:*.CMD=01;32:*.com=01;32:*.COM=01;32:*.dll=01;32:*.DLL
=01;32:*.exe=01;32:*.EXE=01;32:*.arj=01;31:*.bz2=01;31:*.deb=01;31:*.gz=
01;31:*.lzh=01;31:*.rpm=01;31:*.tar=01;31:*.taz=01;31:*.tb2=01;31:*.tbz2
=01;31:*.tbz=01;31:*.tgz=01;31:*.tz2=01;31:*.z=01;31:*.Z=01;31:*.zip=01;
31:*.ZIP=01;31:*.zoo=01;31:*.asf=01;35:*.ASF=01;35:*.avi=01;35:*.AVI=01;
35:*.bmp=01;35:*.BMP=01;35:*.flac=01;35:*.FLAC=01;35:*.gif=01;35:*.GIF=0
1;35:*.jpg=01;35:*.JPG=01;35:*.jpeg=01;35:*.JPEG=01;35:*.m2a=01;35:*.M2a
=01;35:*.m2v=01;35:*.M2V=01;35:*.mov=01;35:*.MOV=01;35:*.mp3=01;35:*.MP3
=01;35:*.mpeg=01;35:*.MPEG=01;35:*.mpg=01;35:*.MPG=01;35:*.ogg=01;35:*.O
GG=01;35:*.ppm=01;35:*.rm=01;35:*.RM=01;35:*.tga=01;35:*.TGA=01;35:*.tif
=01;35:*.TIF=01;35:*.wav=01;35:*.WAV=01;35:*.wmv=01;35:*.WMV=01;35:*.xbm
=01;35:*.xpm=01;35: SUDO_USER=daniel GDK_USE_XFT=1 SUDO_UID=1000
KDEDIR=/opt/kde T1LIB_CONFIG=/usr/share/t1lib/t1lib.config MINICOM=-c on
PATH=/usr/local/sbin:/usr/local/bin:/sbin:/usr/sbin:/bin:/usr/bin
LC_COLLATE=C PWD=/home/daniel INPUTRC=/etc/inputrc
JAVA_HOME=/usr/lib/java LANG=en_US PS1=\u@\h:\w\$  PS2=>  HOME=/root
SUDO_COMMAND=/bin/su SHLVL=2 LS_OPTIONS= --color=auto -F -b -T 0
LOGNAME=root LESS=-M SSH_CONNECTION=200.55.14.250 58852 200.55.14.251 22
LESSOPEN=|lesspipe.sh %s SUDO_GID=100 _=/bin/grep



-----Mensaje original-----
De: mailscanner-bounces at lists.mailscanner.info
[mailto:mailscanner-bounces at lists.mailscanner.info] En nombre de UxBoD
Enviado el: viernes, 19 de octubre de 2007 14:13
Para: MailScanner discussion
Asunto: Re: Weird Problem with MailScanner


Was there anything in /var/log/messages that showed a problem ? How many
MS child processes were set to run ? Even with very little memory it
should at least process some emails.  What RBLs were you checking
against ? Quite are few are no longer running so if you are trying to
query them you will get a very long wait and timeouts which maybe where
the problem is.

IMHO you could try removing the RBL list from your MailScanner.conf so
at least virri scanning is still performed, and see if that makes a
difference.

We really need to see the following :-

1) Number of MS child processes set to spawn
2) MS run in debug mode
3) A lint of your SA configuration
4) ps ef | grep MailScanner when the problem is occuring

Hope we can help you.

Regards,

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----- Original Message -----
From: "Damian Rivas" <damian at cht.com.ar>
To: "MailScanner discussion" <mailscanner at lists.mailscanner.info>
Sent: Friday, October 19, 2007 4:37:35 PM (GMT) Africa/Casablanca
Subject: RE: Weird Problem with MailScanner


Mensaje 
Yeah, I was thinking in upgrading the hardware, but for me that means:
installing an entirely new server. But I wanted to know if it can be a
software error to fix the problem at least temporarily to give me time
to install the new and upgraded server. 

Thanks for the data on memory minimun recommendation Gareth. 





-----Mensaje original----- 
De: mailscanner-bounces at lists.mailscanner.info
[mailto:mailscanner-bounces at lists.mailscanner.info] En nombre de Gareth 
Enviado el: viernes, 19 de octubre de 2007 13:32 
Para: MailScanner discussion 
Asunto: RE: Weird Problem with MailScanner 




I would say it is seriously in need of a memory upgrade. The minimum
recomendation is 1GB. 


-----Original Message----- 
From: mailscanner-bounces at lists.mailscanner.info
[mailto:mailscanner-bounces at lists.mailscanner.info] On Behalf Of Damian
Rivas 
Sent: 19 October 2007 17:22 
To: mailscanner at lists.mailscanner.info 
Subject: Weird Problem with MailScanner 


Hi there, I'm having a really weird problem and as I am a n00b it gets a
bit more difficult to find a solution. 

I'll explain the details first: 

Since 6 months ago, I am the System Administrator of a Tourism Agency.
We use an E-mail Scanner in a server with the following characteristics:


Processor: Pentium II 233 Mhz. 
RAM: 128 MB 
OS: Linux Slackware 9 
MailScanner version: 4.55.10 

This E-mail Scanner use the MailScanner with Sophos Antivirus and Spam
Assasin to filter spam and scan incoming and outcoming mails for viruses
which are then redirected to an internal MS Exchange Server or to the
Internet, respectively by sendmail. 

One month ago, the server started behaving erratically. Instead of
checking and sending mails as it normally did, it started queueing mails
massively and therefore accumulating great quantities of them, it got up
to 10000 mails queued up in a single day, therefore, no one recieved a
single mail. After many pointless attempts to repair this problem and
seeing that the Travel Agents were getting a bit mad, I decided to
redirect the MX server of our domains in the DNS to the firewall, so
that our E-Mail Scanner server didn't recieve more mail, which was only
going to contribute to making the problem worse, more incoming mails,
more queued mails. 

With this, the server started sending the queued mails and mail traffic
was restored with the difference that mails weren't scanned at all(they
were no longer passing through the MailScanner Server). When the mail
queues were empty again, I tried to reestablish the scanning service,
but the problem appeared again. 

I don't have a clear idea of what can be causing this problem. The
machine is pretty old, but the former administrator told me that it had
never had problems. I think that perhaps we are being Spam Bombed and
perhaps the System poor processing capabilities cannot resists the
increasing traffic and therefore it gets stuck and keeps enqueueing
mails. 

Please if anyone can guide me I'll appreciate it, 
Sorry if my English is a bit rusty, it is not my native language,
therefore if you need me to be more clear or try to give more details of
something, don't hesitate to ask so. 
Thanks in advance! 



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