From owner-freebsd-isp@FreeBSD.ORG Tue Nov 25 13:23:31 2003 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-isp@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.FreeBSD.org (mx1.freebsd.org [216.136.204.125]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id E1F8E16A4CF for ; Tue, 25 Nov 2003 13:23:31 -0800 (PST) Received: from franky.speednet.com.au (franky.speednet.com.au [203.57.65.5]) by mx1.FreeBSD.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 92EA543FD7 for ; Tue, 25 Nov 2003 13:23:29 -0800 (PST) (envelope-from andyf@speednet.com.au) Received: from hewey.af.speednet.com.au (udsl-3-062.QLD.dft.com.au [202.168.108.62])hAPLNQUw075510; Wed, 26 Nov 2003 08:23:27 +1100 (EST) (envelope-from andyf@speednet.com.au) Received: from hewey.af.speednet.com.au (hewey.af.speednet.com.au [203.38.96.242])hAPLNOUR018815; Wed, 26 Nov 2003 07:23:25 +1000 (EST) (envelope-from andyf@speednet.com.au) Date: Wed, 26 Nov 2003 07:23:24 +1000 (EST) From: Andy Farkas X-X-Sender: andyf@hewey.af.speednet.com.au To: Bill Vermillion In-Reply-To: <20031125204822.GD6772@wjv.com> Message-ID: <20031126070221.R17841@hewey.af.speednet.com.au> References: <3FC395B3.C59E4AC3@tcworks.net> <20031125175601.GA4988@wjv.com> <20031126055846.X17841@hewey.af.speednet.com.au> <20031125204822.GD6772@wjv.com> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII cc: freebsd-isp@freebsd.org Subject: Re: start multiple sendmail daemons from rc.conf? X-BeenThere: freebsd-isp@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.1 Precedence: list List-Id: Internet Services Providers List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Tue, 25 Nov 2003 21:23:32 -0000 Bill Vermillion wrote: > > >So even though sendmail says it is rejecting connections > > >(twice!), it then goes and accepts two more! Grrr. > > Well it's sort of hard to let the far systems know they shouldn't > be sending any. If you look at the config file you will see that > when sendmail reaches a certain limit it will not accept any more > connections. So your resources are too low [as noted in the other > poster comment below] as you run out of resources before you hit > the limit that is in Sendmail. [see your .cf file and you could > set the load average where you just queue messages and the point > where you reject messages lower] > > > Thrash is correct and it would appear it happening from the > > messages above. Sendmail checks the load average each time a new > > request is received. If the average is above the threshold it > > puts out that message and doesn't handle the request. Obviously, > > when PIDs 71848 and 71861 were started the load average was > > below the threshold. Running out of swap space is never going to > > be a good thing. You need more memory or more swap space. > > Unless he's modified the sendmail.cf for different load values > and moved them too high, then he probably needs both more memory > and more swap space. And of course more memory means you need to > add more swap space. > > Until he gets more memory he can add swap space - man 8 swapon - > but to blame sendmail for an under powered or mis-configured system > is wrong. I know exactly what happened to my system. I was there watching it self destruct. But the beauty of FreeBSD is its stability; the box is still running and hasn't even been rebooted. Yep, it needs more RAM and more swap. But that aint gonna happen :) Some background on my setup: sendmail, procmail, bogofilter, and amavis/uvscan. sendmail receives a message, sends it to amavis which spawns a uvscan, then procmail bogofilters it. Works well, but is rather resource intensive (and as you've noticed, this box is under-resourced). If I disconnect from the 'Net for a few hours, mail gets queued upstream, and when I reconnect, vast quantities of email come in all at once spawning hundreds of processes. (the poo hits the fan at around 300 procs) My sendmail.cf has this in it: O QueueLA=3 O RefuseLA=4 O DelayLA=2 O MaxDaemonChildren=16 O ConnectionRateThrottle=3 but the situation can still occur :) -- :{ andyf@speednet.com.au Andy Farkas System Administrator Speednet Communications http://www.speednet.com.au/