Re: [EXIM] Problem with exceeding max user processes

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Author: Philip Hazel
Date:  
To: Neil Long
CC: exim-users
Subject: Re: [EXIM] Problem with exceeding max user processes
On Tue, 27 Oct 1998, Neil Long wrote:

> 0zXq1V-00086r-00 Failed to create child process to send failure message


This is an Exim delivery process that is trying to send a bounce
message as a result of failure to deliver to one or more recipients in
the message 0zXq1V-00086r-00. It will be running as exim at the time. I
have made a note to make Exim give more information.

It sounds as though you really want to limit the total number of
delivery processes that Exim is running at any one time. The only way to
do this is to set queue_only and then start queue runners fairly
frequently, say once a minute, using queue_run_max to control the
maximum number that are allowed to run simultaneously. Each queue runner
runs one delivery process at once. However, that process may run
subprocesses for local delivery and for generating bounce messages (but
not at once). So if you have remote_max_parallel=1 to prevent the
creation of separate processes for remote deliveries, then if you allow
a maximum of n queue runners, this should use no more than 3n exim
processes for delivery. In addition there is the daemon, and those exim
processes used for receiving messages (one per incoming message).

In fact, local delivery processes rapidly change their uid to that of
the local user, but they start off as exim processes. (Any pipes etc.
below that are then run as the user.)


-- 
Philip Hazel            University of Cambridge Computing Service,
ph10@???      Cambridge, England. Phone: +44 1223 334714.



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