On Tue, 4 Nov 2003, Steven W. Orr wrote:
> My ISP went down, so when it came back up aqnd my secondary mx record
> kicked it all back to me I got a lot of messages from sendmail saying
>
> Nov 4 06:58:26 saturn spamd[952]: hit max-children limit (5): waiting for
> some to exit
>
> I bumped it up to 10 (my server can well handle it) but can someone tell
> me how I can tell what the current number of max sendmail connections is
> so I can balance the spamd limit properly?
The standard default sendmail config puts no limit on the number
of connections. In fact, older versions of sendmail did not have
any connection limit based control, only load-average based controls.
Newer versions of sendmail have a config parameter 'MaxDaemonChildren'
that can be used to effectively limit the number of SMTP connections.
(It defaults to unset, thus no limit, you must explicitly set it
in your config to activate that feature).
Once that limit is reached sendmail will close the 'LISTEN' on port
25 thus refusing new connections.
Note that this will refuse -all- connections to port 25. Depending upon
your configuration it may affect outgoing as well as incoming messages.
If you use only one sendmail daemon and a mail client (such as Eudora
or Outlook) that connects to port 25 to send messages, sending will
be blocked while sendmail is refusing connections.
(Particular consideration if you're an ISP with customers ;).
Unix clients that call sendmail directly (such as elm, mutt, or pine)
will not be affected.
One way to work around this limitation is to run another sendmail daemon
listening on an alternate port or alias-IP-address and configure your
SMTP based clients to use that for sending out messages. (Use that as
an MSA, rather than a MTA).
Using a MSA has other advantages, you can config it to use authentication
to provide service for remote clients with out fear of open-relay abuse,
customize its filtering (don't bother to SA scan your outgoing mail),
etc.
Dave
--
Dave Funk University of Iowa
<dbfunk (at) engineering.uiowa.edu> College of Engineering
319/335-5751 FAX: 319/384-0549 1256 Seamans Center
Sys_admin/Postmaster/cell_admin Iowa City, IA 52242-1527
#include <std_disclaimer.h>
Better is not better, 'standard' is better. B{
-------------------------------------------------------
This SF.net email is sponsored by: SF.net Giveback Program.
Does SourceForge.net help you be more productive? Does it
help you create better code? SHARE THE LOVE, and help us help
YOU! Click Here: http://sourceforge.net/donate/
_______________________________________________
Spamassassin-talk mailing list
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/spamassassin-talk
