Wietse Venema wrote:
Postfix usually logs an error if it cannot proceed. What are the
logfile symptoms (excluding those caused by your babysitter)?
Around the time the problems start there are far less log entries of
postfix. And it's always writing log entries since it's a busy server.
That sounds like the server is getting overloaded and programs running
start to behave erratic.
Without the babysitter the logs would suddenly not show any postfix
entries any more and postfix wouldn't be running at all, without an
indication why. It would only be noticed once someone complained or I'd
check by hand.
I am pretty sure the babysitter does a few false restarts just because
the system is overloaded and it's not getting a response soon enough.
But without it you'd have an MTA less system for days. It's checking
connectivity on 127.0.0.1:25 with a timeout of 35 seconds, which I
believe is rather liberal.
> Postfix master does not allocate memory after it is initialized,
> so the oom killer theory seems a red herring (apart from the fact
> that the oom killer would not send SIGTERM).
Right, I was mis interpreting the SIGTERM, which clearly comes from the
init script ran by the babysitter.
Greetings,
Jeroen
