[ale] freebytes.org continues to sell Really Cheap Hardware

[Bob Toxen]

On Thu, Dec 11, 2003 at 11:57:13AM -0500, BruceG wrote:
> Darn it - reposting (sent from my wrong e-mail address again)
...
>  >>  My mail-server (16 Meg RAM, 100 Mhz
>  > > processor, 850 Meg disk) isn't up to the task of BOTH ClamAV and
>  > > SpamAssassin, so I'm wading in spam. It's amazing what you can do with
> > very
>  > > little resources.
> >
>  > That configuration should have no problem doing this.
>  >
> Hey Bob,
>     I was able to get SpamAssassin (spamd) running with exim4-heavy-daemon.
> Problem was processing volumes of mail much more than 5 or so - the PC would
> simply crawl to a stop and had constant disk io. It became unusable trying
> to read mail with an IMAP client. With lower volumes it was fine.

Try two things:

  1. If you can configure IMAP/Exim to run child processes synchronously,
     i.e., wait for each child to finish before processing the next email
     you may see vast improvement.  Clearly, your system is thrashing.

  2. Set the sticky bit (chmod +t) on the programs involved that get
     invoked repeatedly.  These probably would be the client side of
     SpamAssassin and components of Exim.  If not sure, do something like

	  tcsh
          ls -ltu {,/usr}{s,}bin/* |& head -20

     This will show the most recently invoked programs.

Bob Toxen
bob at verysecurelinux.com               [Please use for email to me]
http://www.verysecurelinux.com        [Network&Linux/Unix security consulting]
http://www.realworldlinuxsecurity.com [My book:"Real World Linux Security 2/e"]
Quality Linux & UNIX security and SysAdmin & software consulting since 1990.

"Microsoft: Unsafe at any clock speed!"
   -- Bob Toxen 10/03/2002