How to understand spamassasin speed

[donald.dawson at bakerbotts.com]

> -----Original Message-----
> From: mailscanner-bounces at lists.mailscanner.info 
> [mailto:mailscanner-bounces at lists.mailscanner.info] On Behalf 
> Of Marcello Anderlini
> Sent: Monday, February 04, 2008 5:05 AM
> To: 'MailScanner discussion'
> Subject: How to understand spamassasin speed
> 
> 
> Hello everybody,
> Is there any way to test the speed of single spamassassin 
> test so to know
> which is slowing my system ?
> 
> I've done spamassassin -D --lint 2>/tmp/speed.txt but there 
> is now way to
> understand how may time each process takes long ?
> 
> Thanks for your help and sorry for my worst English
> 
> Best regards
> 
> Marcello
> 
One of our new mail servers had been blocked by spamhaus and that was
causing additional delays.

I added the following to the spamassassin prefs file on our MX server
and the processing time per message improved by 3 seconds.  Someone with
more experience in this mail list can verify if this is correct, or too
extensive in dropping RBL lookups.

# 11/22/07 DLD - from ms listsever - stops spamhaus lookups
score __RCVD_IN_ZEN 0.0
score RCVD_IN_SBL 0.0
score RCVD_IN_XBL 0.0
score RCVD_IN_PBL 0.0
score URIBL_SBL 0.0

# 11/26/07 DLD Timeouts using ms debug
score URIBL_RHS_DOB 0.0
score DNS_FROM_DOB 0.0

I ran:

# MailScanner --debug --debug-sa 2>&1 | awk '{printf"%s %s\n",
strftime("%T"), $0}' | tee /tmp/mstest.log

This will run MailScanner in debug mode showing all of the rule lookups
and checks to RBLs.  The time stamp will help show what part of the
process takes more time.

from the mailscanner output:

17:57:41 [557] dbg: async: escaping: lost or timed out requests or
responses
17:57:41 [557] dbg: async: aborting after 6.184 s, deadline shrunk:
URI-DNSBL, DNSBL:sbl.spamhaus.org.:9.135.130.12
17:57:41 [557] dbg: async: aborting after 6.184 s, deadline shrunk:
URI-DNSBL, DNSBL:sbl.spamhaus.org.:8.135.130.12
17:57:41 [557] dbg: async: aborting after 7.286 s, deadline shrunk:
URI-DNSBL, DNSBL:sbl.spamhaus.org.:42.195.169.12
17:57:41 [557] dbg: async: aborting after 7.287 s, deadline shrunk:
URI-DNSBL, DNSBL:sbl.spamhaus.org.:202.77.202.74
17:57:41 [557] dbg: async: aborting after 9.813 s, deadline shrunk:
DNSBL-A, dns:A:195.136.130.12.zen.spamhaus.org.
17:57:41 [557] dbg: async: aborted 5 remaining lookups

also:

09:21:31 [22541] dbg: check:
subtests=__BOTNET_NOTRUST,__HAS_MSGID,__MISSING_REF,__MSGID_OK_DIGITS,__
MSGID_OK_HOST,__MSOE_MID_WRONG_CASE,__NONEMPTY_BODY,__SANE_MSGID,__SARE_
WHITELIST_FLAG,__TVD_BODY,__UNUSABLE_MSGID
09:21:31 [22541] dbg: bayes: untie-ing
09:21:39 [22668] dbg: dns: name server: 63.241.249.10, LocalAddr:
0.0.0.0

8 seconds for a bayes process

Donald Dawson
Security Administrator
Baker Botts L.L.P.
713-229-2183