[Mimedefang] Can mimedefang be run nice?

[renaud pascal]

Le samedi 14 octobre 2006 19:25, Barton L. Phillips a écrit :
> renaud pascal wrote:
> >   Please, give infos on your setup (hardware and MTA) and maybe
> > someone in the list will recognize a situation he already had to
> > tame (and maybe succeeded to overcome) !
> Thanks. Yes I would like help so here goes:
> CPU: AMD Athlon 1.2 GHz cache 256 KB.
> MEM: 512 MB

  If you need to process thousands of mails per day this RAM
size is improbable to use it smoothly with MimeDefang launching SA at a
300 KB threshold (that is if you process many mails that are
in the 76KB to 300 KB)

> DISK: about 60 Gig

  Only one physical disk, or you could help with a sendmail queue on
a different HD than the system ?

> OS: RedHat 9 (I know it is old but I have tried to keep it as up to date as possible)
> Mimedefang: 2.53
> SpamAssassin: 3.1.0
> Perl: 5.8.0

  Hum ...

> Sendmail: 8.12

  You'd like to try and install 8.13, not only it is more responsive but
it adds up Queue Groups management, that may help to balance the load.

> >  Do you have RAM and did you try and use it for the MD tmp ?
> >   Do you have connection rate and akin stuff set to the best in
> > your sendmail conf ? 
> >   As you don't give much info on RAM/CPU/bandwidth/mailstats
> > that's quite hard to tell from here  :-) 
> I have not tried to put the MD tmp stuff on a ram disk yet.
> Does that help a lot and how much ram disk should I use.

  Yes, it helps a lot, though I wouldn't recommend to try it with an
overall 512 MB !
  (there's a relation between your number of mails * size and the possible
number of daemons that can use the RAM tmpfile, it has to be set with caution,
see on the MD site, IIRC there are a few hints on it, and I believe David F. Skoll
wrote a few lines about it in some MD file :-)

  Still, you didn't give the CPU/bandwidth/mailstats details :-)

> I will have to put the Bayes stuff in another place I guess.  
> 
> Which items in the sendmail.mc file do you mean when you say "connection rate and akin stuff"?

  Mainly those (don't use *these values* on your system !) :
---------
define(`confQUEUE_LA', `2000')
define(`confREFUSE_LA', `40')
define(`confDELAY_LA', `32')
define(`confMAX_DAEMON_CHILDREN',`96')
define(`confCONNECTION_RATE_THROTTLE',`20')
define(`confBAD_RCPT_THROTTLE',`2')dnl
----------

 And (8.13+, or patch your .../feature/)
----------
GreetPause	8192
----------
  this will send many bots to hell thus may reduce your load.

> 
> I do have a little stuff in the .procmailrc files but nothing complicated. Spamassassin is run by MD.
> 
> if ((-s "./INPUTMSG") < 300*1024) {
> I scan anything less then 300KB. I changed this from the default 100KB was that a mistake?

  With a 512 MB it was not a mistake but a bungee testing :D)
  Well, it depends on your typical mail flow, as already mentioned,
but the cost of SA relative to the size is not linear. Now, if you
don't have much mails in the 76-300 KB range that'd not be significant,
you're the one who knows best your mail flow !

> 
> I also have been getting the RulesDuJour stuff. Is that maybe a problem?
> 
> 10_local_report.cf           70_sare_header.cf  70_sare_stocks.cf             72_sare_bml_post25x.cf    
> 70_sare_adult.cf             70_sare_html.cf    70_sare_whitelist_rcvd.cf     99_sare_fraud_post25x.cf  tripwire.cf
> 70_sare_bayes_poison_nxm.cf  70_sare_oem.cf     70_sare_whitelist_spf.cf      init.pre                  v310.pre
> 70_sare_evilnum0.cf          70_sare_random.cf  71_sare_redirect_pre3.0.0.cf  local.cf

  This is really huge for your RAM size!
  Are you certain that the perimeter you filter need *all* these regexps ?

> I am also doing SpamCop, DCC, Pyzor, and Razor2. I know these can take time is that maybe my problem, if so what should I remove and/or add?

  This also certainly is too much, especially since every time the network will
slow you down it will fill your RAM (and queues) wiile waiting for the answer.

  You should test with only each one of them separately, check the
throughput (and your resources) then make a choice, maybe you can use
2 of them but the four of them, that's greed :-)

> 
> Thanks for your offer to help. 

  That's the purpose of the list :-)
  Read the post from Jan-Pieter Cornet, I just noticed it in my client
then I've been redundant with his advice on several points, sorry !

> I have been running Mimedefang and Spamassassin for a couple of years now and only lately has it caused my system to slow down.

  That could be an infraclinical hardware problem slowly approaching.
  That could also be that there are much more evil mails than before
and also much more zombifiable machines in the World. I don't know
but I've been told some users still run win32 even whithout pulling
off the ethernet plug ;D)

> I have tried a couple of time to move some of the stuff to a newer (Ubuntu) system and have succeeded only to have system failures 

  Mmm, that could be something to investigate !?

> which caused me to move back to this old RedHat 9 machine which just will not die.   

  That's frequent to old beasts :-)
  I'd say don't try to fix it, just test with the different hints on
lowering the trafic/load/storage (while not lowering your throughput)

> Web: http://www.applitec.com

  Er, at applitec you maybe can find some hard disk and RAM waiting to help you ?-)

  Good luck !

-- 
no sigfile no cry
.