[Mimedefang] timeout before data read / smfi_chgheader returned MI_FAILURE

[Aleksandar Milivojevic]

Jurgen Botz wrote:
> Sorry, I should have mentioned that I saw that discussion, but my
> problem seems to be different.  I didn't see the same symptoms of
> the defang process being restarted quickly, for example, and there
> definitely seems to be a connection to this error:
> 
>   Nov 22 09:33:54 kahuna mimedefang[5656]: iAMHXhdD005903: 
> smfi_addheader returned MI_FAILURE

You will get that error if sendmail gave up on MIMEDefang (milter 
timeout for example), and MIMEDefang attempted to add the header.

Also, do note that MIMEDefang process doesn't need to restart quickly. 
How quickly it will restart dependes on the MTA configuration of 
connecting (remote) end.  It has nothing to do with you.  If remote MTA 
has retry interval set to something low (1, 5 or 10 minutes), your 
MIMEDefang will restart quickly.  If remote MTA has retry interval set 
to one hour or even longer, than your old MIMEDefang process will 
probably finish long before the other side tries to retransmit, and you 
will not see MIMEDefang processes accumulating (as was discussed in 
previous thread).  However the couse of the problem is probably still 
the same: timeouts set too low so MIMEDefang can't finish processing 
large emails.  Either set longer timeouts (in both MIMEDefang and 
Sendmail), or lower the maximum size of email you accept, or both.

Also, make sure that you are not feeding emails larger than ~100kB to 
SpamAssassin.  SpamAssassin takes forever to process them, and it is 
very unlikely that spam will be that big.

-- 
Aleksandar Milivojevic <amilivojevic at pbl.ca>    Pollard Banknote Limited
Systems Administrator                           1499 Buffalo Place
Tel: (204) 474-2323 ext 276                     Winnipeg, MB  R3T 1L7