[ILUG] sendmail probs - spamassassin to blame?

[Justin Mason]

I think that line is ok.  I suggest looking back through your mail log
for unusual sender/recipients...

--j.

John Kinsella writes:
> Hi thanks for reply.
> (I have disabled spamassassis and as you say it made no difference)
> 
> But why would these load probs have started yesterday morning?
> I usually have machine reasonably heavily loaded.
> 
> The following is output from ps auxww|grep sendmail
> when "burst" is occurring,
> 
> root at jkcray:/home/kinsella# ps auxww|grep sendmail
> root      7353  0.0  0.1   9008  1992 ?        Ss   09:59   0:00 sendmail:
> MTA: accepting connections         
> smmsp     7359 16.5  0.2   8804  2900 ?        Rs   09:59   0:45 sendmail:
> MSP: ./m36FeldZ010683 [127.0.0.1]: user open
> smmsp     7371  0.0  0.0   1752   484 ?        Ss   10:00   0:00 /bin/sh
> -c test -x /etc/init.d/sendmail && /usr/share/sendmail/sendmail cron-msp
> smmsp     7372  0.0  0.0   1756   596 ?        S    10:00   0:00 /bin/sh
> /usr/share/sendmail/sendmail cron-msp
> smmsp     7385 17.6  0.4   8792  4168 ?        R    10:00   0:46 sendmail:
> MSP: ./m36Feldc010683 [127.0.0.1]: user open
> 
> I'm puzzled by the following line - maybe the culprit??
> 
> smmsp     7371  0.0  0.0   1752   484 ?        Ss   10:00   0:00 /bin/sh
> -c test -x /etc/init.d/sendmail && /usr/share/sendmail/sendmail cron-msp
> 
> John
> Justin Mason wrote:
> 
>  It's not SpamAssassin, I think -- sounds like load problems.   I've had
>  great results switching from sendmail to postfix, which can at least queue
>  the inbound mail instead of refusing connections...
> 
>  --j.
> 
>  John A. Kinsella writes:
>   
> 
>  Hi.
>  I'm running Gutsy Gibbon - have my work email sent directly via
>  sendmail/smtp to my mail spool dir.
> 
>  All well until this morning when I started getting phonecalls that emails
>  to me were bouncing.
> 
>  What is wierd is that I get a burst of say 20-40 rejected messages
>  ======8<========
>  Apr  8 22:21:46 jkcray sm-msp-queue[22055]: m38LK1wX022055: to=postmaster,
>  delay=00:00:00, xdelay=00:00:00, mailer=relay, pri=38873,
>  relay=[127.0.0.1]
>  [127.0.0.1], dsn=4.0.0, stat=Deferred: Connection refused by [127.0.0.1]
>  ======8<========
>  in /var/log/mail.log every few minutes.
> 
>  Between these bursts I can send and receive email but not during them.
>  Googling suggests that spamassassin might be the culprit?
> 
>  I've tried editing sendmail.mc and rebuilding sendmail.cf with larger
>  value for the "throttle" settings but that didnt help.
> 
>  Needless to say I had not changed any system setting in last 7 days but a
>  central ul mail server did go down last night - though the net admins say
>  it is not relevant.
> 
>  Suggestions very welcome.
> 
>  John
> 
> 
>  John A. Kinsella                Ph:     +353-61-202148          (Direct)
>                                       +353-61-333644 x 2148   (Switch)
>  Mathematics Dept.               e-mail: John.Kinsella at ul.ie
>  University of Limerick          FAX:    +353-61-334927
>  IRELAND                         Web:    http://jkcray.maths.ul.ie
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>   
> 
>  --
>  John A. Kinsella                Ph:     +353-61-202148          (Direct)
>                                       +353-61-333644 x 2148   (Switch)
>  Mathematics Dept.               e-mail: John.Kinsella at ul.ie
>  University of Limerick          FAX:    +353-61-334927
>  IRELAND                         Web:    http://jkcray.maths.ul.ie