New MS install is slow to an extreme

DAve dave.list at pixelhammer.com
Thu Apr 3 12:44:44 IST 2008


Julian Field wrote:
> 
> 
> DAve wrote:
>> After much plugging away, double checking, triple checking and herding 
>> of cats I *think* we may out of the woods. I won't know until tomorrow 
>> AM when traffic picks up again. Here are my findings so far.
>>
>> MailScanner 4.67.6
>> ClamAV 0.92.1
>> SpamAssassin 3.2.4
>>
>> Virus Scanners = [clamav | clamavmodule] - There appears to be no real 
>> gain in running clamavmodule, some speed increase but not enough to be 
>> noticed. I have clamavmodule configured just to save some memory.
>>
>> ClamAV Full Message Scan = yes - That is a killer, it seems to really 
>> increase processing time. I have it now set to no, and I have removed 
>> my MSRBL sigs.
>>
>> Incoming Work Dir = tmpfs (mdmfs in FreeBSD) - Surprisingly little 
>> difference. I left it on a memory file system for now.
>>
>> mailscanner.cf -> skip_rbl_checks 1 - Oddly does not do what it 
>> claims. SA is still doing rbl checks. I commented out the DNSEval 
>> plugin in v320.pre file and was rewarded with errors for my effort. 
>> Not certain what the correct method of disabling rbl checks in SA is 
>> now. Peter Farrow found a message where this has been seen already. 
>> http://markmail.org/message/xzqi5fmrbj3tfgg2
>>
>> MailScanner batch size - With version 4.54.6 MS processed 10 messages 
>> per batch and kept up just fine. With version 4.67.6 it will grab 30+ 
>> messages which takes longer to process. Increasing MS children has no 
>> effect. More children working slower doesn't process more mail for me. 
>> I don't see where I can configure this.
> "Max Children =" in MailScanner.conf. If you were using 
> upgrade_MailScanner_conf to upgrade your MailScanner.conf file then this 
> setting would not have been changed between versions. Do you really copy 
> over all your settings by hand into the new MailScanner.conf file? Wow! 
> That must take *hours*.
> 

Nope, I can modify Max Children, my question is can I control how large 
a batch size each child will process? Previously if I had 500 messages 
waiting each child would pick up 10 messages, now they will each pick up 
30 messages. This is clearly evident in my MRTG graphs where I show over 
  the last four months I never had a batch over 10, yesterday I had 
batch sizes of 30 for several hours.

I do use upgrade_MailScanner_conf, and works a treat ;^)

DAve

>>
>> I am currently seeing processing times of .8 to 20 seconds per 
>> message, generally around the 2 to 4 seconds mark. This is for batches 
>> of 1 to 10 messages. I was seeing as much as 800 seconds for a batch 
>> size of 30 messages this morning. So there has been improvement.
>>
>> I am compiling my SA rules and I run my RBLs in the MTA (hence why I 
>> do not want rbl checking in SA).
>>
>> Overall, my previous install of MS 4.54.6, Clam .92, and SA 3.1.9 
>> would run rings around this install. I am seriously contemplating 
>> rolling back but I am uncertain if I have the original tarball for 
>> Julian's Clam+SA package.
>>
>> I believe my issue is configuration of MS or SA at this point. I am 
>> open to suggestions.
>>
>> Thanks for the help.
>>
>> DAve
>>
> 
> Jules
> 


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