First off, since DNS is acting like such a hog on Windows 2003, I'm going to guess that this is what is slowing down the processing of E-mail and why I am suddenly getting steady overflow. I can resolve that in various ways, but this is a temporary situation since I am going to migrate back to the other box once I rebuild it. DNS will be migrated to a separate server in the coming months...my first foray into Linux.
I'm more concerned about the future, and hitting a wall that wasn't necessarily expected, otherwise thinking that I still had plenty of capacity to spare, and hence the additional questions.
You seemed to indicate that service launched processes count against the threads...meaning that smtp32.exe launches declude.exe, which launches F-Prot and McAfee. So would this count for 4 threads (not according to Declude, but Windows/IMail)? What about Sniffer and each external test that I have configured within Declude, would those count as well?
I also re-read the following post by Sandy:
http://www.mail-archive.com/imail_forum@list.ipswitch.com/msg94576.html
It seems to indicate that there is no "thread limit", but something else instead; a limit of "64 objects per thread". I'm not sure how that might apply here. So if I am seeing overflow with processing power to spare, I should be able to increase the threads in IMail to a higher number than 60 in order to better utilize my server's capacity. With memory utilization below 50%, it doesn't seem like there is much risk in doing this, would that be correct?
I haven't applied any of the registry tweaks, and probably won't on this box since it is only a temporary home. Still good stuff to know about should I ever have to do this again.
Thanks,
Matt
R. Scott Perry wrote:
Am I to assume a "first in, first out" type of scenario in the way that it handles the overflow?
I believe so, but that is handled by Windows (Declude simply asks Windows for all the files, and whatever Windows returns first gets processed first).
I have my server set to 60 delivery threads, up from the default 30.
Sandy I believe indicated that 64 was the limit due to the fact that IMail is not multi-threaded or something to that tune.
Unfortunately, there is no set limit. Some people have problems with 30, others are fine with 60 or higher. It also depends on any changes made to the registry settings for the "mystery heap" (which gets even weirder; some people see better results by raising the value there, while others see better results by lowering it!).
Does having Declude DELETE E-mail go against the thread total?
Not with IMail v8 (since IMail v8 uses one process to handle an unlimited number of E-mail deliveries). So using the DELETE action versus another action will have little effect (with IMail v8) on the overflow situation.
Also, how should I confirm how many threads are being used by IMail just so that I can rule out the issue with not seeing 60 such files?
You would need to count the total number of Declude.exe, SMTP32.exe, and AV processes.
Lastly, you indicated multiple things that can go against this number, am I to assume that Declude counts not what IMail is limited by (IMail threads), but instead it just uses this as a guide, so maybe increasing the number in IMail even higher, while it won't have an effect on IMail, it would cause Declude to not overflow, especially when there is processing power to spare?
Declude counts (to the best of its ability) the number of service-started processes. That is what IMail (Windows, to be technical) is limited by. Changing the IMail setting will also change the number that Declude uses.
Although I'm definitely moving from IMail, I fear hitting a wall before that actually happens. There is definitely more I/O and processor to spare on this box, but the overflow conditions happen every few minutes.
Correct. The I/O and processor time aren't relevant here -- they could both be at 0, and the situation could still occur (for example, if 60 E-mails come in simultaneously, and take 30 seconds each to scan due to waiting for DNS packets to come back).
-Scott
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