[SA-exim] SA and Server spec recommendations

[Mikel Tidwell]

I didn't have such an extreme problem, but my load was between 0.8 and 2.1
when I would start up the mail server with exim's new local_scan.  The
problem was that I was temporarily rejecting messages unless they hit a
trigger of 35.0.  I learned the hard way that all a temporary reject does
is restart the process about 10 seconds later.  The remote server simply
resends the message.  It doesn't matter how many times I temp rejected a
message, it would just come right back.

Now I perm reject on 13.0, I don't temp reject at all, unless it was a
system error, and my load is back where it used to be.  This is FreeeBSD
4.6-STABLE, P2 333 with 256 MB ram.

 9:01AM  up 5 days, 11:18, 1 user, load averages: 0.00, 0.05, 0.03

HTH,

 _ - _ - _ - _ - _ - _ - _ - _ - _ - _ - _ - _ - _ - _ - _ - _ - _ - _
  -- Mikel Tidwell   President: RPGamer -- http://www.rpgamer.com/
   MSNM: FireMyst    Personal Home Page -- http://dragon.rpgamer.com/
 - _ - _ - _ - _ - _ - _ - _ - _ - _ - _ - _ - _ - _ - _ - _ - _ - _ -

On Sat, 27 Jul 2002, Odhiambo Washington wrote:

-> Helo local_scannners,
->
-> I am running SA (Exim-4.10) and thanks Marc, the installation was quite painless.
-> I used method 1 - replace src/local_scan.c.
->
->
-> I installed SA (local-scan) last night and apart from the fact that I am still
-> familiarizing myself with it's actions, I do realize that the loads on my server
-> had increased tremendously. Without it, my load averages were in the 0. range.
-> Now I see it's in the range of between 4.x to 10.x (sometimes) - this server I
-> use is the our "beast of burden". This is what I see since last night and there
-> is no indicator that it's ever gonna go down ;-)
->
->
-> last pid: 39546;  load averages:  4.71,  5.54,  6.38                                                     up 1+21:28:25
-> 11:42:03
-> 128 processes: 8 running, 119 sleeping, 1 stopped
-> CPU states: 86.4% user,  0.0% nice, 12.1% system,  1.6% interrupt,  0.0% idle
-> Mem: 195M Active, 95M Inact, 60M Wired, 16M Cache, 48M Buf, 7660K Free
-> Swap: 1374M Total, 94M Used, 1280M Free, 6% Inuse, 280K In
->
->   PID USERNAME      PRI NICE  SIZE    RES STATE  C   TIME   WCPU    CPU COMMAND
-> 47685 root           10   0  1084K   448K wait   0  98:20  8.54%  8.54% bash
-> 74777 root           10   0  1084K   456K wait   0  92:58  8.35%  8.35% bash
-> 36622 root           51   0  2116K  1228K CPU0   0   0:03  9.64%  6.59% top
-> 39508 root            2   0 14508K 10404K connec 0   0:02 25.22%  6.54% perl
-> 39531 root           52   0 14556K 10232K CPU1   1   0:02 34.44%  6.25% perl
-> 39512 root            2   0 14284K 10264K connec 1   0:01 17.88%  4.64% perl
-> 39070 root           10   0 14196K 10368K nanslp 1   0:01  5.58%  2.20% perl
-> 39131 root           10   0 14600K 10848K nanslp 0   0:01  5.79%  2.10% perl
-> 39564 root            2   0 14192K 10068K connec 1   0:01 42.00%  2.05% perl
-> 39539 root           10   0 14080K 10256K nanslp 1   0:00 13.66%  1.90% perl
-> 39563 root            2   0 14096K  9956K connec 0   0:01 37.00%  1.81% perl
-> 38199 root           10   0 14156K 10284K nanslp 1   0:01  3.33%  1.76% perl
->
->
-> This is an SMP box running FreeBSD 4.5-STABLE with these specs:
->
-> FreeBSD 4.5-STABLE #4: Thu May  2 09:54:01 EAT 2002
->     wash@ns2.wananchi.com:/usr/obj/usr/src/sys/SRV4.x
-> Timecounter "i8254"  frequency 1193182 Hz
-> CPU: Pentium III/Pentium III Xeon/Celeron (447.69-MHz 686-class CPU)
->   Origin = "GenuineIntel"  Id = 0x673  Stepping = 3
->   Features=0x387fbff<FPU,VME,DE,PSE,TSC,MSR,PAE,MCE,CX8,APIC,SEP,MTRR,PGE,MCA,CMOV,PAT,PSE36,PN,MMX,FXSR,SSE>
-> real memory  = 402587648 (393152K bytes)
-> avail memory = 387457024 (378376K bytes)
-> Programming 24 pins in IOAPIC #0
-> IOAPIC #0 intpin 2 -> irq 0
-> FreeBSD/SMP: Multiprocessor motherboard
->  cpu0 (BSP): apic id:  1, version: 0x00040011, at 0xfee00000
->  cpu1 (AP):  apic id:  0, version: 0x00040011, at 0xfee00000
->  io0 (APIC): apic id:  2, version: 0x00170011, at 0xfec00000
-> Preloaded elf kernel "kernel" at 0xc03cf000.
->
->
->
-> Does running SA (in conjunction with other services - httpd, mysqld, POP3 daemon)
-> generally requite higher system specs??
-> Maybe yes, but the main reason for my asking this is to tap on your experiences
-> running SA at your sites.
->
->
-> Thanks in advance.
->
->
->
-> -Wash
->
->