Spamassassin timeouts - Just an observation

Jason Ede J.Ede at birchenallhowden.co.uk
Mon Jan 19 19:11:16 GMT 2009


> -----Original Message-----
> From: mailscanner-bounces at lists.mailscanner.info [mailto:mailscanner-
> bounces at lists.mailscanner.info] On Behalf Of Steve Campbell
> Sent: 19 January 2009 14:59
> To: MailScanner discussion
> Subject: Re: Spamassassin timeouts - Just an observation
> 
> 
> 
> Martin Hepworth wrote:
> > I'd drop the SARE rules back in, one at a time and see if any trigger
> > the timeouts. Do you run sa-compile as this can help a great deal
> > pre-compiling the perl RE into C.
> >
> > --
> > martin
> >
> > 2009/1/18 Steve Campbell <campbell at cnpapers.com>:
> >
> >> Quoting "Koopmann, Jan-Peter" <jan-peter at koopmann.eu>:
> >>
> >>
> >>> Hi,
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>> The topic seems to come up quite often, and although the answers
> are
> >>>> usually pretty much the same, I never really see much of a
> "Solved"
> >>>>
> >>> reply.
> >>>
> >>> are you using BotNet.pm by any chance. There was a bug in one of
> the
> >>> older versions causing sporadic SpamAssassin timouts.. I looked for
> ages
> >>> and on my systems the old BotNet.pm triggered it. Updated (without
> >>> changing anything else) and never seen the error again. Just an
> indea.
> >>>
> >>> Regards,
> >>>   JP
> >>>
> >>>
> >>> --
> >>>
> >> Jan-Peter,
> >>
> >> So far, it appears the extra rules from SARE was the biggest
> contributor. I have
> >> removed all of the sets from my sa-update and the problems almost
> disappeared. I
> >> do not run BotNet.pm.
> >>
> >> The most common problem with these timeouts always seemed to be DNS
> and RBLs,
> >> but I wasn't seeing any problems there. I kept looking there though.
> I was also
> >> being fooled by high, but not critical load averages. I have
> duplicate servers
> >> that were not timing out with similar load averages, rules, and
> daily email
> >> counts. The non-problem machine was getting it's email spread out
> over the
> >> course of a day, whereas the problem machine was receiving large
> batches at
> >> different times of the day.
> >>
> >> Once I started reviewing the mailscanner-mrtg plots, I saw this.
> Another thing
> >> that threw me off was the fact that no matter how many emails
> arrived at one
> >> time, the LA would spike to 3.5 or higher on either machine. The
> high message
> >> per batch count would cause the LA to gradually creep higher, but
> the smaller
> >> batches would give constant LAs. The low amount of RAM for both
> machines explain
> >> that.
> >>
> >> I had been fooled by MS doing such a good job for years, and just
> wasn't
> >> thinking very clearly about what could have caused this. Two
> upgrades ago, I
> >> started using the new sa-update feature and added the rules using
> that. It
> >> didn't show immediate changes to the way the machines acted over a
> week or so,
> >> so I never thought it was a problem. The load averages are still
> fluctuating,
> >> but batch times are considerably lower, which allows faster
> throughput, and less
> >> timeouts on the machines. I hope the RAM I have ordered will fix the
> rest of it.
> >>
> >> I'm sorry to have caused such a stir with all of this, as this
> thread has went
> >> on way to long. I've sharpened my MS diagnostic skills, though, and
> hope it
> >> might have helped others - the information everyone has provided has
> been very good.
> >>
> >> Thanks to all again,
> >>
> >> steve
> >>
> >>
> >
> Martin,
> 
> I plan on adding the rules back as you suggest, but I will do so after
> I
> install the RAM that's on it's way. I'm still getting significant
> timeouts on the problem server, but not like before. I want to see if
> the RAM will stop them first, as this machine gets batches of emails
> from mail lists for our reporters, and I can't do anything about that.
> 
> Thanks
> 
> steve

Its a shame there isn't an updated equivalent of the SARE rulesets or at the very least an amalgamation of the useful rules that are still left.

Jason


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