Milter (spamassassin): to error state : spamassassin milter seems to randomly fail

[Joost van Baal]

Hi,

I am running spamass-milter 0.2, using the 0.2.0-1 Debian package, from
Don Armstrong, backported to Debian GNU/Linux woody.  About once a day,
the filter stops functioning:

 Aug 14 12:30:07 babbage sm-mta[10175]: h7EAQ7QE010175: Milter (spamassassin): 
timeout before data read
 Aug 14 12:30:07 babbage sm-mta[10175]: h7EAQ7QE010175: Milter (spamassassin): 
to error state
 Aug 14 12:30:07 babbage sm-mta[10175]: h7EAQ7QE010175: Milter: from=<>, 
reject=451 4.7.1 Please try again later
 Aug 14 12:30:07 babbage sm-mta[10175]: h7EAQ7QE010175: from=<>, size=0, 
class=0, nrcpts=0, proto=SMTP, daemon=MTA, relay=<...snip...>
 Aug 14 12:30:07 babbage sm-mta[10175]: h7EAQ7QF010175: Milter: from=<>, 
reject=451 4.7.1 Please try again later
 Aug 14 12:30:07 babbage sm-mta[10175]: h7EAQ7QF010175: from=<>, size=0, 
class=0, nrcpts=0, proto=SMTP, daemon=MTA, relay=<...snip...>
 ....
 Aug 14 12:30:20 babbage sm-mta[10178]: h7EAQKQD010178: Milter (spamassassin): 
init failed to open
 ...
 Aug 14 12:30:20 babbage sm-mta[10178]: h7EAQKQD010178: Milter: initialization 
failed, temp failing commands
 ...
 Aug 14 12:46:12 babbage sm-mta[10414]: h7EAgCQD010414: Milter (milter-amavis): 
init success to negotiate
 ...
 Aug 14 12:57:12 babbage sm-mta[10415]: h7EAgCQD010415: Milter (spamassassin): 
error connecting to filter: Connection timed out with 
/var/run/sendmail/spamass.sock
 ...
 Aug 14 14:05:36 babbage sm-mta[10976]: h7EBtPQD010976: Milter (spamassassin): 
error connecting to filter: Connection refused by /var/run/sendmail/spamass.sock

Amavis, the other milter thing I'm running, was doing fine here.

The machine is accepting mail since Aug  5 09:48:01.  It has received
about 50,000 messages since then.  (It is the 3rd mailrelay for about
43,000 mailboxen, and is planned to become the preferred MX.)  (Might be
nice data for Chuck Yerkes' Jun 16, 2003 survey. ;-)

The machine is running spamassassin 2.55-2 and sendmail 8.12.3-6.4 (all
Debian packages).  Linux 2.4.20 kernel, Intel Hardware.

The machine doesn't seem to have any problems with load or memory
consumption (it's a pretty big box, btw).

So, the questions is: how can I get spamassassin to keep running?

The other 2 mailrelays (one Red Hat, one Solaris) have has similar
problems (although the daemons don't malfunction that often on these
boxes).  However, on these systems, the spamass-milter and/or spamd
processes completely die.  I've hacked up a little quick-and-dirty
script which checks wether these processes exist, and restarts them if
they don't.  Such a script won't work on the Debian box: the processes
don't die on that box.  (I run

 spamd -m 10 --nouser-config -u spamd -d --pidfile=/var/run/spamd.pid

and

 spamass-milter -p /var/run/sendmail/spamass.sock

.)

What do other people do to work around this?  Just restart every so many
minutes, no matter what?  (Do I really have to do such an ugly thing?)

Would it be useful if I give you more info on the precise circumstances?
If so, please be quick to ask: I am able to do some testing on the
machine now, but will no longer be able to within about a week.  I have
no experience whatsoever with the valgrind memory debugger, but am
willing to invest some time in this or similar tools.

Any pointers or hints will be highly appreciated.

Thanks for you time, Bye,

Joost

-- 
Joost van Baal                                http://banach.uvt.nl/
                                                 Tilburg University
address@hidden                                  The Netherlands

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