[ale] Sendmail delivery timeout

[Jeff Hubbs]

I have a problem where a Sendmail server will timeout on a user's 
outbound message, apparently upon trying to reach a set of load-balanced 
Barracude spam filters:

Sep 28 13:35:25 mailserver4 sendmail[30969]: p8SHZPtR030969: 
from=<john at bio.foo.bar>, size=1569685, class=0, nrcpts=2, 
msgid=<0C4C4C48-8BE8-4FF8-8F58-42D7F6024DBA at bio.foo.bar>, proto=ESMTP, 
daemon=MTA, relay=deliverator.foo.bar [130.207.165.163]
Sep 28 13:35:25 mailserver4 sendmail[30970]: p8SHZPtR030969: alias 
<agape at ccr.foo.bar> => skeletor at gmail.com, agro246 at mail.foo.bar
Sep 28 13:35:25 mailserver4 sendmail[30970]: p8SHZPtR030969: alias 
<hakamoto at ccr.foo.bar> => hakamoto at comail.green.org, 
hakamoto at comail.green.org
Sep 28 13:35:26 mailserver4 sendmail[30970]: p8SHZPtR030969: SMTP 
outgoing connect on mailserver4
Sep 28 13:38:52 mailserver4 sendmail[30970]: p8SHZPtR030969: 
SYSERR(root): timeout writing message to barracuda5-1.green.org.: 
Connection reset by barracuda5-1.green.org.
Sep 28 13:38:52 mailserver4 sendmail[30970]: p8SHZPtR030969: SMTP 
outgoing connect on mailserver4
Sep 28 13:42:18 mailserver4 sendmail[30970]: p8SHZPtR030969: 
SYSERR(root): timeout writing message to barracuda5-2.green.org.: 
Connection reset by barracuda5-2.green.org.

Message in question did have a significant attachment (PDF) but its size 
is not known to me.

206 seconds separate the connection attempts from MAILSERVER4 to 
BARRACUDA5-1 or -2.  If I want to increase the timeout in Sendmail, 
there are a bunch of choices (see grep output below) but none of them 
nor any obvious combination of them appear to yield 206 seconds.  What 
to do?


# open connection cache timeout
O ConnectionCacheTimeout=5m
# timeouts (many of these)
#O Timeout.initial=5m
#O Timeout.connect=5m
#O Timeout.aconnect=0s
#O Timeout.iconnect=5m
#O Timeout.helo=5m
#O Timeout.mail=10m
#O Timeout.rcpt=1h
#O Timeout.datainit=5m
#O Timeout.datablock=1h
#O Timeout.datafinal=1h
#O Timeout.rset=5m
#O Timeout.quit=2m
#O Timeout.misc=2m
#O Timeout.command=1h
#O Timeout.ident=5s
#O Timeout.fileopen=60s
#O Timeout.control=2m
O Timeout.queuereturn=7d
#O Timeout.queuereturn.normal=5d
#O Timeout.queuereturn.urgent=2d
#O Timeout.queuereturn.non-urgent=7d
#O Timeout.queuereturn.dsn=5d
O Timeout.queuewarn=2d
#O Timeout.queuewarn.normal=4h
#O Timeout.queuewarn.urgent=1h
#O Timeout.queuewarn.non-urgent=12h
#O Timeout.queuewarn.dsn=4h
#O Timeout.hoststatus=30m
#O Timeout.resolver.retrans=5s
#O Timeout.resolver.retrans.first=5s
#O Timeout.resolver.retrans.normal=5s
#O Timeout.resolver.retry=4
#O Timeout.resolver.retry.first=4
#O Timeout.resolver.retry.normal=4
#O Timeout.lhlo=2m
#O Timeout.auth=10m
#O Timeout.starttls=1h