Re: sendmail fails to deliver mail with attachments in /var/spool/mqueue

David Lang
2000-11-10T22:07:22Z

how many CPUs in these high loadave boxes? unless you have a very
impressive machine (8+SMP) the defaults should be plenty high.

also I thought the QueueLA default was 8 and the RefuseLA was 12 or have
they been bumped up since I last examined them (8.8/8.9 timeframes)

David Lang

On Fri, 10 Nov 2000, Jeff V. Merkey wrote:

> Date: Fri, 10 Nov 2000 14:52:01 -0700
> From: Jeff V. Merkey <jmerkey@timpanogas.org>
> To: sendmail-bugs@sendmail.org, linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org
> Subject: Re: sendmail fails to deliver mail with attachments in
> /var/spool/mqueue
>
>
>
> Hey guys,
>
> We got to the bottom of the sendmail problem. The line:
>
> -O QueueLA=20
>
> and
>
> -O RefuseLA=18
>
> Need to be cranked up in sendmail.cf to something high since the
> background VM on a very busy Linux box seems to exceed this which causes
> large emails to get stuck in the /var/spool/mqueue directory for long
> periods of time. Since vger is getting hammered with FTP all the time,
> and is rarely idle. This also explains what Richard was seeing with VM
> thrashing in a box with low memory.
>
> The problem of dropping connections on 2.4 was related to the O RefuseLA
> settings. The defaults in the RedHat, Suse, and OpenLinux RPMs are
> clearly set too low for modern Linux kernels. You may want them cranked
> up to 100 or something if you want sendmail to always work.
>
> Jeff
>
> "Jeff V. Merkey" wrote:
> >
> > Claus,
> >
> > This is a bug. emails should not get stuck in the mail queue because
> > your load averaging routine doesn't work right. If this is so, then why
> > do some emails (small ones) get through and big ones do not,
> > irreguardless of delivery order. If it were a loading problem one would
> > think emails would still get processed in the order they arrived, not
> > some arbitrary "order from hell" which is what was happening. This is
> > severely broken IMHO and you need to fix it.
> >
> > Jeff
> >
> > Claus Assmann wrote:
> > >
> > > All of these entries have an 'X':
> > >
> > > > Mail Queue (11 requests)
> > > > --Q-ID-- --Size-- -Priority- ---Q-Time--- -----------Sender/Recipient-----------
> > > > FAA15716X 31418 200564 Nov 9 05:01 <linux-kernel-owner@vger.kernel.org>
> > > > 7BIT
> > > > <linux-archive@timpanogas.org>
> > > > <jmerkey@timpanogas.org>
> > > > FAA20318X 32693 201751 Nov 10 05:29 <linux-kernel-owner@vger.kernel.org>
> > > > 7BIT
> > > > <linux-archive@timpanogas.org>
> > > > <jmerkey@timpanogas.org>
> > > > SAA01998X 34484 203865 Nov 6 18:20 <linux-kernel-owner@vger.kernel.org>
> > > > 7BIT
> > > > <linux-archive@timpanogas.org>
> > > > <jmerkey@timpanogas.org>
> > > > QAA01341X 65091 204150 Nov 6 16:50 <linux-kernel-owner@vger.kernel.org>
> > > > 7BIT
> > > > <mharris@opensourceadvocate.org>
> > > > SAA13390X 41368 210478 Nov 8 18:03 <linux-kernel-owner@vger.kernel.org>
> > > > 7BIT
> > > > <linux-archive@timpanogas.org>
> > > > <jmerkey@timpanogas.org>
> > > > LAA03425X 158115 218595 Nov 6 11:27 <jmerkey@timpanogas.org>
> > > > <Mark.Coe@rrd.com>
> > > > <jmerkey@timpanogas.com>
> > > > QAA01343X 65091 234150 Nov 6 16:50 <linux-kernel-owner@vger.kernel.org>
> > > > 7BIT
> > > > <linux-archive@timpanogas.org>
> > > > <jmerkey@timpanogas.org>
> > > > KAA21225X 205041 235799 Nov 10 10:26 <paperboy@g2news.com>
> > > > 8BITMIME
> > > > <jmerkey@timpanogas.com>
> > > > FAA20229X 1457 272283+Nov 10 05:01 <mharris@opensourceadvocate.org>
> > > > (Warning: could not send message for past 1 hour)
> > > > <andre@linux-ide.org>
> > > > QAA06681X 242511 272929 Nov 7 16:18 <jmerkey@timpanogas.org>
> > > > 8BITMIME
> > > > <andre@timpanogas.org>
> > > > PAA12261X 576306 606701 Nov 8 15:06 <langus@timpanogas.com>
> > > > <jmerkey@timpanogas.com>
> > >
> > > That is, the load on your machine is too high.
> > > 3:27pm up 29 min, 2 users, load average: 10.00, 9.97, 8.50
> > >
> > > It seems as if this is broken, top shows 2 running processes
> > > and 67 sleeping.
> > >
> > > If you run the queue with -O QueueLA=20 the entries are processed.
> > > So you have to change your configuration to deal with the "high"
> > > load, which I did right now by editing your .cf file.
> -
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