Re: [Exim] filehandles and such

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Author: Philip Hazel
Date:  
To: Dan Kappus, Jim Tittsler
CC: exim-users
Subject: Re: [Exim] filehandles and such
On Fri, 3 Nov 2000, Dan Kappus wrote:

> When I first ran this, everything was okay until about message
> 700, where it crapped out. Exim stated something about not
> being able to open enough file descriptors to send any more
> of these messages.


Since each message is sent in a different process, it must be a global
limit on the number of FDs that a single user (in this case exim) may
have open simultaneously. Presumably, as a result of all these messages,
Exim is running lots of delivery processes.

> What is the problem here? Is it with Exim (doubt it) or
> the operating system setup (Debian Linux, kernel 2.2 something) (possible)?


It has been the case that some operating systems had an unreasonably
low limit set for the "max FDs per user" limit. No idea if this applies
to you, but you can certainly increase it (though I cannot remember how
in Linux).

However, Jim's advice is probably the better thing to do:

On Sat, 4 Nov 2000, Jim Tittsler wrote:

> Instead of having Exim try to deliver all of the mail the
> instant it is injected, you might have it queue up the mail so
> that the queue running process(es) handle it. You could add
> the -odq switch to your exim command.



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