[Exim] exim load goes sky high

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Author: mark david mcCreary
Date:  
To: exim-users
Subject: [Exim] exim load goes sky high
I have a new situation using Exim 3.13 on a Pentium Linux box as a delivery
only box for mailing lists. That is, this machine receives messages
grouped with a hundred addresses each, and takes care of delivering them to
the receipent, with max_rcpt = 1, so everybody gets their email address in
the To: line.

Normally, this machine runs a couple of dozen delivery processes with a
load factor of less than 1. In the past couple of days, the load factor
has zoomed to 10 or 20, within minutes, thereby invoking the
deliver_queue_load_max clause of exim, and abandoning the processes.

I think this new situation is related to yahoo.com screwing things up, but
do not know what to look for when the load starts to climb. Yahoo has been
accepting a few addresses of the 100 in a group, and then does a
"Connection reset by peer" type error.

I can see a lot of defunct exim processes when doing a PS command, and
these defunct processes do chew up a bit of CPU before going away. I
cannot tell anything from looking at the exim logs when the load starts to
climb. I'm not even sure that Exim is trying to deliver to yahoo when this
occurs, as the logs do not give me any clues.

What can I look for to determine why the load starts climbing dramatically ?

Are there any Exim configuration parameters to play with to address this
sort of situation.

Thanks for any feedback.

mark

mark david mcCreary
Internet Tools, Inc.            1436 West Gray #438
mdm@???          Houston, Texas 77019
http://www.internet-tools.com   713.627.9600