[exim-dev] [Bug 517] Load average variable stuck during long…

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Author: bug517
Date:  
To: exim-dev
Subject: [exim-dev] [Bug 517] Load average variable stuck during long connections
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http://www.exim.org/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=517





------- Comment #1 from ph10@??? 2007-06-25 11:07 -------
On Fri, 22 Jun 2007, moseleymark@??? wrote:

> The spam filter box keeps connections open for a long time to save on
> session start up (it'll keep it open for a tunable amount of emails or
> till Exim times it out).


This is what is causing your problem. Exim makes the assumption that
connections do not last particularly long, and that they are from a
random collection of hosts sending it messages.

> I'm seeing something odd: Exim is queueing incoming messages from the spam
> filter box due to high load even when the load is low. All I can guess is that
> the initial load average gets reused over and over, despite the fact that
> /proc/loadavg is rechecked for each message. Or perhaps once it hit the
> 'queue_only_load' threshold, some flag got set that hasn't gotten unset.


The latter. This is the comment in the code:

    Note that, once set, local_queue_only remains set for any subsequent   
    messages on the same SMTP connection. This is a deliberate choice; even
    though the load average may fall, it doesn't seem right to deliver later 
    messages on the same call when not delivering earlier ones. 


> connection in question has been connected for about 6 hours!


...way outside the sort of connections I have ever considered...


So what is to be done? I suppose the only answer is to add an option to
change the behaviour so that it recalculates the load average for every
message.

Philip

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