Topic: server locking up

[kmcelwain]

Okay this is really driving me nuts...and I hope that someone will help me out.

Fresh install P4 2+GHZ 512MB RAM 80GB HD

plenty of power.

Keeps locking up and the CPU load is going through the roof.  80+% and it locks up.

I'm running this for mail and it just seems to be getting slammed.

Physical memory is growing constantly....and I'm not sure if that's really a problem or not. It's at 53% right now and the swap is at 0%.

If someone can suggest a specific log file to look at I would love the help.

Was running spamassasin and ClamAV and now i'm running DShield to maybe get some resolution.

I turned off SA and ClamAV because they were doing their job...maybe too well....2000 emails in just under 6 hours....300 spam 700 infected.

Think that could do it?

Please email me, hopefully it's running.

Thanks,
Karl

[Souley]

Try the top command

Code: [Select]

[root@tuxtest root]# top

To see the process wich use a lot of memory and cpu.

[raem]

kmcelwain

> I turned off SA and ClamAV because they were doing their job...maybe too well....2000 emails in just under 6 hours....300 spam 700 infected.


Spamassassin is processor & memory intensive and with that quantity of messages perhaps you ran into overload.

Sounds like you could do with smtpfront-qmail blocking to block viruses and spam and maybe give your processor/memory a lot less to do.

See my HOWTOs at

http://mirror.contribs.org/smeserver/contribs/rmitchell/smeserver/howto/Spam%20blocking%20HOWTO%20using%20smtpfront-qmail%20for%20sme%20server.htm

and

http://mirror.contribs.org/smeserver/contribs/rmitchell/smeserver/howto/Virus%20and%20file%20blocking%20HOWTO%20using%20smtpfront-qmail%20for%20sme%20server.htm

Regs
Ray

[kmcelwain]

Thanks for the link for the smtp block.

I ran top and saw something that I wasn't sure about.

I have multiple www and httpd running and I mean multiple but I have about 300 accounts running on this box.  The question is should these multiple instances be running all the time?  Is there a log file that I can look at to tell if everything is working the way it's supposed to be.

Well i'm up and running 20 hours after turning off SA and ClamAV.

You said SA is processor intensive....do you have a minimum suggestion for a primary mail server...Processor and RAM?

Still and always a loyal member.

Karl

[raem]

> ....do you have a minimum suggestion for a primary mail server...Processor and RAM?
> P4 2+GHZ 512MB RAM 80GB HD

Your spec is OK for a standard sme server that is NOT doing heavy duty. My impression is that sme v6.0.x needs 512Mb RAM as a minimum. It sounds like you may have a heavy load, I would double your RAM to 1Gb at least, and maybe more is needed.
The amount of RAM required depends on how much you are doing with the machine.

All the logs are in /var/log/....
You can also view them in server manager

Regs
Ray

[kmcelwain]

Thanks for the suggestion....I pretty much decided that I'm gonna order another stick of 512, heck it's cheap and easy.

I ran top and the sucker just seems to keep getting bigger.  My memory usage isn't dropping it just seems to keep climbing.  Shouldn't that number climb and drop durning the day?  Especially dropping at night.

Thanks again Ray.

[raem]

The sme server will try to use all available memory, it's a Linux feature. Search here for memory, lots of posts about it.
Watch the swap file, if that is always large then you are probably running at your limits for the amount of memory installed.

You may have a lot of processes running at the same time and may need to disable some services or slow down the mail. Look for qmail processes.

You have not said much about what else (services & rpms) are running on the server.

Regs
Ray

[PhilV]

> ....do you have a minimum suggestion for a primary mail server...Processor and RAM?
> P4 2+GHZ 512MB RAM 80GB HD

Your spec is OK for a standard sme server that is NOT doing heavy duty. My impression is that sme v6.0.x needs 512Mb RAM as a minimum. It sounds like you may have a heavy load, I would double your RAM to 1Gb at least, and maybe more is needed.
The amount of RAM required depends on how much you are doing with the machine.

He he, I know my machine is just beign used as a basic router / mail / file / web server at home, but it is only a PR266MX processor with 192Mb of memory
Does me fine, but is only being used very lightly! Most of it is just thru-traffic, (i.e. online gaming), going from one of the computers on my LAN straight thru to the internet.

Phil

[kmcelwain]

Okay RPMS that I have installed.

Updated my Horde Framework, Imp, Kronolith, Turba, Mnemo, and Nag.

Spamassasain and ClamAV with Amavis

DShield

MRTG for monitoring Spam and Viruses

PHPSysinfo for system specs and hardware monitoring.

My memory is up to 99% and I guess after reading that's not a big thing...it should be fine...free memory is wasted memory right.

Hey I was running on a PII with a 10G HD with 256MB but performance was iffy and I was running 5.6.

With 300+ accounts, all teachers, they wanted a performance increase.

our site is www.banks.k12.ga.us let me know what you think...it's still growing so be gentle and our upstream to the world is messed up so it might be a little slow.  Working on it though.

Thanks again

[guest]

I don't think it was so much a processor problem as it was a procmail problem.

When I thought about it I realized that I created the accounts after the RPMs were installed.  Then I remembered that one of the RPMs enabled procmail for all the current users.

Beleive it or not the machine fell over...long story...killed the hard drive and I started over again from scratch.  This time added the users first then installed the RPMS.

Working like a charm.

WOOHOOO.