On Mon, 16 Oct 2006, Debbie D wrote:
I have max child set to 15 (up from 5) and not sure what else I can offer in
the way of what you need to know to help me, but if you tell me where to
look I can spout what you need.
:
:
Just this afternoon (again around 12.30) it loaded up again with 312 mails..
the web based control panel was reacting so slow I would get 3 new ones for
every one I managed to delete or deliver (I could not just delete the queue
because some were actually valid mails in there) Server loads rose to well
over 30, I shut exim
You probably have max children set too high. When a big
bunch of messages come in, they all run, you don't have
enough memory, and your system starts swapping like crazy.
That brings everything on your server to a near halt.
It reduces throughput, which means you get a backlog, which
means you get stuck in this state because all the children
stay active hogging RAM and trying to process the backlog.
The solution is to either expand the RAM so the system can
really handle that many active children at once, or set the
maximum number of children to something much lower. Try 2
or 3 even. It seems like more children would mean more work
getting done, and that's true, but it's only true up to a point,
and you've passed that point.
- Logan
