On Thu, 13 Nov 2003, Joseph Kezar wrote:
> I have exim running on a domain that typically has alot of volume
> inregards to email traffic. I am noticing a bizarre phenomenon where
> the load starts to go very high, very quickly. I do a ps ax | grep exim
> and I see originally (1) exim -bd -q2h and (3) exim -q and some exim -Mc
> $id.
>
> When the load starts to creep above 6 I get a second exim -bd -q2h(or
> maybe I am doing the chicken before the egg, maybe this causes the load)
> eventually I will have several (n) exim -bd -q2h's in mmy process list
> and the load will eventually exceed 50.
Have you set any of the Exim configuration options that limit what it
does under high load? E.G. queue_only_load, deliver_queue_load_max?
It sounds like a lot of simultaneous incoming mail pushes your system
into uncontrolled overload. Multiple exim -bd -q2h processes are just
multiple incoming messages. You'll get more information from exiwhat
than from ps.
--
Philip Hazel University of Cambridge Computing Service,
ph10@??? Cambridge, England. Phone: +44 1223 334714.
Get the Exim 4 book: http://www.uit.co.uk/exim-book
