Re: [Exim] exim dies silently

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Author: Thomas O'Dowd
Date:  
To: Paul
CC: exim-users
Subject: Re: [Exim] exim dies silently
Hi Paul,

I'm running Redhat 8. Memory test is clean. Kernel on that machine is
currently 2.4.20-20.8smp from RH.

I have yet to get a coredump. I thought core dumps were enabled until
just now as I was doing a ulimit -a just before the command to start
exim ran. Only trouble was that the command to start it was the "daemon"
function from redhat. This function was setting the ulimit to not dump
core on me. I've just restarted exim again, overriding this so that core
should be dumped on a crash. I'll wait for the next crash to see if it
dumps core. I should also add that exim was compiled on this machine.

In the meantime, any other ideas?

Thanks!

Tom.

On Wed, 2004-01-07 at 12:07, Paul wrote:
> Thomas,
>
> No problems. I didnt realise it ran for a while before it crashed. Full
> debugging won't be feasible then :)
> Do you have any other apps doing the same thing? What OS? What kernel? Tried
> a memory test?
> Do you ever get stack dumps or page faults? core dumps in /var/log/dmesg
> (depending on OS ) ?
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Thomas O'Dowd" <tpodowd@???>
> To: "Paul" <paul@???>
> Cc: <exim-users@???>
> Sent: Wednesday, January 07, 2004 1:56 PM
> Subject: Re: [Exim] exim dies silently
>
>
> > Hi Paul,
> >
> > Thanks for your suggestion. Unfortunately (or fortunately depending on
> > how you look at it), exim doesn't crash that regularly. It can take a
> > day to crash or stay up for a week or two. I also can't pinpoint any
> > particular message that is causing the crash so its hard to turn on full
> > debugging in a useful way that won't fill the disk. Its also a
> > production server.
> >
> > thanks,
> >
> > Tom.
> >
> > On Wed, 2004-01-07 at 11:31, Paul wrote:
> > > try doing an exim debug. With version 3.x it was
> > > /usr/local/exim/bin/exim -d9 -bd
> > >
> > > and you'll get full console debugging. be aware it will be a lot of
> text. if
> > > its a live server, then make a copy of your config and run a new
> instance of
> > > the debug and bind it to say port 26 so you can run your debugging one
> as
> > > well as your normal one if its in production
> > >
> > > ----- Original Message -----
> > > From: "Thomas O'Dowd" <tpodowd@???>
> > > To: <exim-users@???>
> > > Sent: Wednesday, January 07, 2004 1:24 PM
> > > Subject: [Exim] exim dies silently
> > >
> > >
> > > > Dear all,
> > > >
> > > > I've been experiencing problems with EXIM dying silently on a Redhat 8
> > > > machine. I'm running 4.30 which I updated to recently. Previously I
> was
> > > > running 3.36 which was also crashing (main reason I decided updated).
> > > >
> > > > Exim 3.x had been running on a different machine running RH6.2 for me
> > > > for a long time with the same configuration. Recently we moved
> hardware
> > > > and OS version. Only after the move, did we start experiencing the
> > > > problem.
> > > >
> > > > This seems to suggest either a hardware or a problem with some library
> > > > on the new OS or some setting. The only problem is that I have other
> > > > long term running processes on this machine, including a relational
> > > > database and a few java based engines that don't crash. Exim is the
> only
> > > > process that experiences these problems. The new machine itself was
> also
> > > > in production previously and is running below capacity in terms of
> > > > memory and disk space. Its a twin cpu machine with 2GB of ram.
> > > >
> > > > Doing a "ulimit -a" just before exim is started by the start script,
> > > > shows the following.
> > > >
> > > > core file size        (blocks, -c) unlimited
> > > > data seg size         (kbytes, -d) unlimited
> > > > file size             (blocks, -f) unlimited
> > > > max locked memory     (kbytes, -l) unlimited
> > > > max memory size       (kbytes, -m) unlimited
> > > > open files                    (-n) 1024
> > > > pipe size          (512 bytes, -p) 8
> > > > stack size            (kbytes, -s) 8192
> > > > cpu time             (seconds, -t) unlimited
> > > > max user processes            (-u) 7168
> > > > virtual memory        (kbytes, -v) unlimited
> > > > Starting exim: [  OK  ]

> > > >
> > > > So cpu time shouldn't be a problem. I've checked lsof and its not
> > > > running out of file descriptors. It just disappears from the process
> > > > list. Also, even though I allow it to dump core, it doesn't???
> > > >
> > > > There are no unusual entries in the mainlog/paniclog or rejectlog
> files.
> > > > There are a few frozen mails in the mailq but nothing extra ordinary.
> > > >
> > > > I'm running out ideas trying to debug this problem. Has anyone
> > > > experienced anything like this before?
> > > >
> > > > Best regards,
> > > >
> > > > Tom.
> > > >
> > > >
> > > > --
> > > >
> > > > ## List details at http://www.exim.org/mailman/listinfo/exim-users
> Exim
> > > details at http://www.exim.org/ ##
> > > >
> > > >
> > >
> >
> >
> > --
> >
> > ## List details at http://www.exim.org/mailman/listinfo/exim-users Exim
> details at http://www.exim.org/ ##
> >
> >
>