Hi, I got a message from my load monitoring script... one of our ispconfig server has a unusual high load since round about 30 minutes… Code: 29296 username 25 0 63924 35m 29m R 22.3 1.7 0:00.67 spamassassin 29320 username 25 0 20216 13m 7040 R 17.6 0.7 0:00.53 clamscan It's a Athlon X2 4200 CPU with 2GB RAM… so I think it's not „a matter of size“… Code: top - 16:30:22 up 19 days, 57 min, 1 user, load average: 3.81, 3.72, 3.32 Tasks: 156 total, 5 running, 150 sleeping, 0 stopped, 1 zombie Cpu0 : 1.1% us, 0.1% sy, 0.0% ni, 98.6% id, 0.1% wa, 0.0% hi, 0.0% si Cpu1 : 3.3% us, 0.1% sy, 0.0% ni, 96.6% id, 0.0% wa, 0.0% hi, 0.0% si Mem: 2056208k total, 1996320k used, 59888k free, 108964k buffers Swap: 1004020k total, 4k used, 1004016k free, 1028064k cached Looks like a process is stuck… (<defunct>) Code: # ps waux | grep username username 28233 0.9 0.0 13068 1752 ? S 16:26 0:03 /usr/bin/imapd Maildir username 28857 0.0 0.0 12844 1540 ? S 16:26 0:00 /usr/bin/imapd Maildir username 28868 0.0 0.0 12860 1584 ? S 16:26 0:00 /usr/bin/imapd Maildir username 4931 0.0 0.0 8608 936 ? Ss 16:32 0:00 /usr/bin/procmail -f- username 4962 0.0 0.0 8480 800 ? Ss 16:32 0:00 /usr/bin/procmail -f- username 4963 0.0 0.0 0 0 ? Z 16:32 0:00 [sh] <defunct> username 4967 0.0 0.0 8480 800 ? S 16:32 0:00 /usr/bin/procmail -f- username 4968 0.0 0.0 5628 1208 ? S 16:32 0:00 /bin/sh /home/admispconfig/ispconfig/tools/clamav/bin/clamassassin username 4977 0.0 0.9 25208 18880 ? R 16:32 0:00 /home/admispconfig/ispconfig/tools/clamav/bin/clamscan --no-summary --stdout --mbox - username 4983 0.0 0.0 8608 936 ? S 16:32 0:00 /usr/bin/procmail -f- username 4984 0.0 1.7 63392 35340 ? R 16:32 0:00 /usr/bin/perl -T -w /home/admispconfig/ispconfig/tools/spamassassin/usr/bin/spamassassin --prefs-file=/home/www/web4/user/usernamels/.user_prefs A few minutes later it's working fine… Code: # ps waux | grep username username 28233 0.9 0.0 13068 1752 ? S 16:26 0:03 /usr/bin/imapd Maildir username 28857 0.0 0.0 12844 1540 ? S 16:26 0:00 /usr/bin/imapd Maildir username 28868 0.0 0.0 12860 1584 ? S 16:26 0:00 /usr/bin/imapd Maildir username 6901 0.0 0.0 8608 936 ? Ss 16:33 0:00 /usr/bin/procmail -f- username 6932 0.0 0.0 8608 936 ? S 16:33 0:00 /usr/bin/procmail -f- username 6933 0.0 1.3 56152 27740 ? R 16:33 0:00 /usr/bin/perl -T -w /home/admispconfig/ispconfig/tools/spamassassin/usr/bin/spamassassin --prefs-file=/home/www/web4/user/usernamels/.user_prefs username 6934 0.0 0.0 8480 800 ? Ss 16:33 0:00 /usr/bin/procmail -f- username 6935 0.0 0.0 5600 1140 ? S 16:33 0:00 /bin/sh -c wc -c | formail -A"X-Loop: ${LOGNAME}@localhost" \? -I"Subject: Mailsize: ${LOGNAME}" | \? $SENDMAIL -oi admispconfig@localhost username 6938 0.0 0.0 15388 1224 ? S 16:33 0:00 /usr/sbin/sendmail -oi admispconfig@localhost username 6939 0.0 0.0 8480 800 ? S 16:33 0:00 /usr/bin/procmail -f- username 6940 0.0 0.0 5628 1208 ? S 16:33 0:00 /bin/sh /home/admispconfig/ispconfig/tools/clamav/bin/clamassassin username 6941 0.0 0.0 15380 1212 ? D 16:33 0:00 /usr/sbin/postdrop -r username 6949 0.0 0.1 8948 2576 ? R 16:33 0:00 /home/admispconfig/ispconfig/tools/clamav/bin/clamscan --no-summary --stdout --mbox - root 6951 0.0 0.0 2616 504 pts/0 R+ 16:33 0:00 grep username So… any ideas what's going on there? Regards, Yves
Without any interaction of mine now the system load is in a "normal" range. Code: top - 17:25:12 up 19 days, 1:52, 1 user, load average: 0.00, 0.71, 1.93 Tasks: 130 total, 1 running, 129 sleeping, 0 stopped, 0 zombie Cpu0 : 0.3% us, 0.3% sy, 0.0% ni, 99.3% id, 0.0% wa, 0.0% hi, 0.0% si Cpu1 : 1.7% us, 0.3% sy, 0.0% ni, 98.0% id, 0.0% wa, 0.0% hi, 0.0% si Mem: 2056208k total, 1869628k used, 186580k free, 100452k buffers Swap: 1004020k total, 4k used, 1004016k free, 858756k cached But eventhough I'm interested in the reasons of such a high load (which isn't just a peak because of the fact that it lasts round about an hour…). The server has ca. 40 mailboxes yet and I'm looking forward to ten times more mailboxes than now… Best Regards, Yves
I guess you got hit ba a massive spam attack which resulted in the high load. To reduce the load of spamassassin, you might want to add some global filter rules and dns balcklists to your postfix configuration.
There're already DCC, Razor, Pyzor and some RHBL active… and mailgraph doesn't show any massive spam attacks. I updated to the latest release of ispconfig last night - so I just wait and look for any further load peaks.
I had the same issue, even numbers around 60 / 70.. but after a week or so it become to 0.4, 0.3... maybe some underground linux tasks... who knows...
Could you put in "qhape active" to see the amount of active mails when u experience the high load from spamassassin / clamscan? I always get high loads when i have large amounts of active mails... I believe spamassassin / clamscan is taking up a lot of CPU time scanning through the mails.
Here the same, in five servers (2 x opteron, 2x p4 2.8 and 1 x amd64 sempron). All with debian sarge. All spamassasin childs get 100% cpu ... even when there are only one or two mails at queue ...
If you have also many clamd processes, you should consider to switch to clamd as described here: http://www.howtoforge.com/forums/showthread.php?t=12864
But, i dont have a lot of processes, the problem is those processes (one, two, ... ten) all take 100% CPU. A single process can increase the load to 4.0, there is no need to be more than one. (sorry for my bad english)
