On Thu, 23 Aug 2001, Dan Egli wrote:
> This seems rather bizare to me. Perhaps it's normal.
>
> I was watching the mails go out of the server as I accasionally do, when I
> noticed that there were three different exim processes working on the same
> message ID.
> 4661 ? S 0:00 /usr/sbin/exim -Mc 15a04m-0001BT-00
> 4664 ? S 0:00 /usr/sbin/exim -Mc 15a04m-0001BT-00
> 4662 ? S 0:11 /usr/sbin/exim -Mc 15a04m-0001BT-00
>
>
> This seems really strange. I looked at the message and it was a large
> attachment from one user on my machine to another user on the same machine.
>
> Shouldn't exim just read the message and send to local delivery? why the
> three processes?
It's all explained in the book. (Sorry to keep saying this.)
Three is unusual; two is quite standard. My guess is this:
. Process 4661 is presumably the original delivery process.
. Process 4662 is presumably the process it forks off in order to do a
local delivery with the privileges of the recipient.
. The actual delivery is to a pipe (user has a .forward file), so there
is yet another process (4664) which is running the command at the end
of the pipe.
Next time you see this, you can verify it by making use of the exiwhat
utility. (Though the processes might have disappeared before you can get
the information.)
--
Philip Hazel University of Cambridge Computing Service,
ph10@??? Cambridge, England. Phone: +44 1223 334714.
