choked hold queue

[Glenn Steen]

On 13/09/2007, Simon Jones <simon at saq.co.uk> wrote:
> Hi,
>
> I have a problem with a mailscanner box at the moment getting choked up
> and stacking mail in the /var/spool/postfix/hold directory.
>
> When I check for MailScanner processes all I get is a bunch of
>
> postfix  15620  0.4  1.4 38712 29564 ?       S    11:10   0:01
> MailScanner: checking with SpamAssassin
> postfix  15660  0.6  1.4 38724 29572 ?       S    11:10   0:01
> MailScanner: checking with SpamAssassin
> postfix  15689  0.6  1.4 38740 29580 ?       S    11:10   0:01
> MailScanner: checking with SpamAssassin
> postfix  15719  0.6  1.4 39188 29844 ?       S    11:10   0:01
> MailScanner: checking with SpamAssassin
>
> it seems that SpamAssassin is choking up but I can't figure out why.  I
> run 3 separate gateway machines with MailScanner logging to a central
> mysql db and MailWatch for a front end GUI.
>
> I've shut down each gateway in turn and only gateway 3 seems to be
> having this problem, the other two are fine and processing mail normally
> and a ps aux | grep MailScanner shows some checking with spamassassin
> and others doing virus scans etc.
>
> I changed spamassassin time out within MailScanner.conf and pretty much
> every message timed out on the spamassassin scan, so it killed the
> process and sent the message on for delivery - spam or no spam.
>
> I've checked spam.assassin.prefs against one I know is working and the
> file is exactly the same, a spamassassin -D -p
> /etc/MailScanner/spam.assassin.prefs.conf --lint which didn't report any
> errors, although it did say pyzor and dcc checks were local only but I
> don't think this is an issue as spamassassin would just ignore the
> checks if they're unavailable right?
>
> Dns is resolving fine, no probs at all with that and I can't see
> anything different to the blacklists to that of the working server so I
> don't think it's a slow rbl.
>
> Anyone know what could be causing spamassassin / mailscanner to choke
> like this?  before I stopped the service and moved the queue to a
> temporary dir there was about 500mb of mail in there - I'll filter this
> back in later but need to get the darn thing running properly first :)
>
> Thanks!!
>
> Simon J
>
A "classic" problem is that something has put a non-queuefile file in
the hold directory... This will make MailScanner choke.
But what you describe sound a bit different. If you run a message
through (as the PF user) spamassassin -t -D, where do you see
"pauses"?

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