Scalix Forums

Hello,

I’m a Linux/scalix newbie and could really use some advice on this one. The best way that I can describe the problem that we seem to be having is that we might be pushing the SMTP services of our server too hard. The confusing part is that we have about 400 ‘internet users’ (redirect accounts) and around 70 local users.
The two clues that I’ve found are that the Internet Mail Gateway queue seems to be very slow in processing emails, and most email clients (SWA, and thunderbird) seem to get hung when trying to send from time to time.
Local mail, from one scalix account to another scalix account, go though instantly. The issues seem to be restricted to outbound mail.
I’ve been monitoring the Internet Mail Gateway que with the command
omstat -s | grep -Ei 'internet' only to find that the cue seems to grow MUCH faster than it shrinks.
There is also an issue with the reveries DNS entry for our email IP which I’m currently working with our ISP on. Just doesn’t seem that that would be the problem for something like this.

The box is a 3Ghz with 1G of ram. Looking at the ‘free’ stats is seems that only half of the ram is being used at any given time.

Thank you in advance.

Your DNS problem could very easily cause this. Email servers are very picky about DNS and reverse resolution. If you read any how-to or book on email the first thing they have you do is get DNS correct.
There may be other reasons, but I'd put pressure on your ISP to get the DNS problem worked out.
Good luck,
chris

I agree, this very much sounds like sendmail being slow to resolve. On that server, what is the response time when you run dig mx scalix.com? Is it subsecond or does it take a while?

You said internal mail is being delivered instantaneously - this rules out a general server issue.

Let me know what you work out with your ISP and reverse lookups.

Sascha.

I finally got my ISP to correct the reverse DNS name, seem like that didn’t do the trick. Here are the MX dig results. Any other ideas?

[root@mail ~]# dig mx scalix.com

; <<>> DiG 9.2.4 <<>> mx scalix.com
;; global options: printcmd
;; Got answer:
;; ->>HEADER<<- opcode: QUERY, status: NOERROR, id: 53687
;; flags: qr rd ra; QUERY: 1, ANSWER: 3, AUTHORITY: 0, ADDITIONAL: 0

;; QUESTION SECTION:
;scalix.com. IN MX

;; ANSWER SECTION:
scalix.com. 14311 IN MX 5 gw1.scalix.com.
scalix.com. 14311 IN MX 15 gw2.scalix.com.
scalix.com. 14311 IN MX 25 gw3.scalix.com.

;; Query time: 17 msec
;; SERVER: 4.2.2.1#53(4.2.2.1)
;; WHEN: Tue May 16 09:23:51 2006
;; MSG SIZE rcvd: 88

ScalixSupport wrote:I agree, this very much sounds like sendmail being slow to resolve. On that server, what is the response time when you run dig mx scalix.com? Is it subsecond or does it take a while?

You said internal mail is being delivered instantaneously - this rules out a general server issue.

Let me know what you work out with your ISP and reverse lookups.

Sascha.

please post omstat -s output as well as some sendmail log

Cheers,

Sascha.

I'm not exactly sure where to get the sendmail logs that you've requested or ther than the Internet Mail Gateway logs via the SAC... here ya go, and thank you

[root@mail ~]# omstat -s
Service Router Started 08:56:13 0
Local Delivery Started 08:56:13 0
Internet Mail Gateway Started 08:56:13 264
Local Client Interface Enabled 08:56:13 0
Remote Client Interface Enabled 08:56:13 27
Test Server Started 08:56:13 0
Request Server Started 08:56:13 0
Print Server Started 08:56:13 0
Bulletin Board Server Started 08:56:13 0
Background Search Service Started 08:56:13 0
CDA Server Started 08:56:13 0
POP3 interface Started 08:56:14 0
Omscan Server Started 08:56:14 0
Archiver Started 08:56:14 0


WARNING Internet Mail (Incoming ) 05.16.06 00:43:36
[OM.UX 1401] Cannot read message data.
<- tf_AppendRecord
-> GetMailText
<- GetMailText
-> GetMailText
<- GetMailText
-> ux_DecrementNesting
<- ux_DecrementNesting
<- ux_InParseMimeMultiPart
-> im_UnlinkItem
-> im_ItemRef2FName
<- im_ItemRef2FName
<- im_UnlinkItem
<- ux_InParseMimeContent
<- /build/10.0.1.3/src/bin/ux/ux_in.c:4671[102,1401]
<- /build/10.0.1.3/src/bin/ux/ux_in.c:4766[102,1401]
<- /build/10.0.1.3/src/bin/ux/ux_in.c:2187[102,1401]


WARNING Internet Mail (Incoming ) 05.16.06 02:03:36
[OM.UX 1401] Cannot read message data.
<- tf_AppendRecord
-> GetMailText
<- GetMailText
-> GetMailText
<- GetMailText
-> ux_DecrementNesting
<- ux_DecrementNesting
<- ux_InParseMimeMultiPart
-> im_UnlinkItem
-> im_ItemRef2FName
<- im_ItemRef2FName
<- im_UnlinkItem
<- ux_InParseMimeContent
<- /build/10.0.1.3/src/bin/ux/ux_in.c:4671[102,1401]
<- /build/10.0.1.3/src/bin/ux/ux_in.c:4766[102,1401]
<- /build/10.0.1.3/src/bin/ux/ux_in.c:2187[102,1401]


WARNING Internet Mail (Incoming ) 05.16.06 02:08:46
[OM.UX 1401] Cannot read message data.
<- tf_AppendRecord
<- mp_PutObjectFile
<- ux_InParseMimeFile
<- ux_InParseMimeContent
-> im_UnlinkItem
-> im_ItemRef2FName
<- im_ItemRef2FName
<- im_UnlinkItem
-> im_GetNewItemNum
<- im_GetNewItemNum
-> ux_InParseContentHeader
-> GetMailText
<- /build/10.0.1.3/src/bin/ux/ux_mimein.c:284[102,1401]
<- /build/10.0.1.3/src/bin/ux/ux_mimein.c:5426[102,1401]
<- /build/10.0.1.3/src/bin/ux/ux_in.c:4766[102,1401]
<- /build/10.0.1.3/src/bin/ux/ux_in.c:2187[102,1401]

At this point I have so many 'admin folks' breathing down my neck that I'm willing to hire someone to help us out... any suggestions?

Thanks

The Internet gateway queue only shows outgoing messages.

The first thing to do is to turn the gateway off and edit the file /var/opt/scalix/sys/unix.mapper. You should change the line to read . Restart the gateway

The conversation that the unix gateway has with sendmail will be recorded in the file /tmp/scalix-sendmail.log. This gives us a chance to see why the queue is locking up.

Cheers

Dave

ok, made the changes you suggested and YIKES there's a lot of data in there. Mostly email content. Any specific that I should look for and post here?

seems like all the data in the /tmp/scalix-sendmail.log file includes the email content, loads of personal data, any chance that I can email this informaition to you and not post this type of info on a public forum? - Thanks

is this what you are looking for?

I've switch out the domail with 'our domail'.

21849 >>> 220 mail.our domain.com ESMTP Sendmail 8.13.1/8.13.1/Submit; Tue, 16 May 2006 15:19:09 -0700
21849 <<< EHLO mail.our domain.com
21849 >>> 250-mail.our domain.com Hello root@localhost, pleased to meet you
21849 >>> 250-ENHANCEDSTATUSCODES
21849 >>> 250-PIPELINING
21849 >>> 250-8BITMIME
21849 >>> 250-SIZE
21849 >>> 250-DSN
21849 >>> 250-AUTH GSSAPI DIGEST-MD5 CRAM-MD5
21849 >>> 250-DELIVERBY
21849 >>> 250 HELP
21849 <<< MAIL FROM: <lManning@our domain.com> RET=FULL ENVID=11520763.1147802887666.JavaMail.SYSTEM@www1
21849 >>> 250 2.1.0 <lManning@our domain.com>... Sender ok
21849 <<< RCPT TO: <user@hotmail.com> NOTIFY=DELAY,FAILURE
21849 >>> 250 2.1.5 <user@hotmail.com>... Recipient ok
21849 <<< DATA
21849 >>> 354 Enter mail, end with "." on a line by itself
21849 <<< Received: from www1 ( 10.0.2.20)
21849 <<< by mail.our domain.com (Scalix SMTP Relay 10.0.1.3)
21849 <<< via ESMTP; Tue, 16 May 2006 11:09:59 -0700 (PDT)
21849 <<< Date: Tue, 16 May 2006 11:08:07 -0700
21849 <<< From: "Leslie Manning" <lManning@our domain.com>
21849 <<< Reply-To: "Leslie Manning" <lManning@our domain.com>
21849 <<< To: user@hotmail.com
21849 <<< Message-ID: <11520763.1147802887666.JavaMail.SYSTEM@interpol>
21849 <<< Subject: ISSA CFT Independent Study
21849 <<< x-scalix-Hops: 1
21849 <<< X-Mailer: ColdFusion MX Application Server
21849 <<< Mime-Version: 1.0
21849 <<< Content-Type: text/plain;
21849 <<< charset="US-ASCII"
21849 <<< Content-Disposition: inline
21849 <<<
21849 <<<
21849 >>>
---------- email content ---------
21849 >>>
21849 >>>
21849 >>> .
21849 <<< 250 2.0.0 k4GMJJLX021858 Message accepted for delivery
21849 >>> 250 2.0.0 k4GMJ9bc021849 Message accepted for delivery
21849 <<< QUIT
21849 >>> 221 2.0.0 mail.our domain.com closing connection
21849 >>> QUIT

eidrup wrote:At this point I have so many 'admin folks' breathing down my neck that I'm willing to hire someone to help us out... any suggestions?

Thanks

You could send a message to support at scalix dot com and request help on a support incident, charged at US$ 300 each. We will then send you a form to fax back and will ssh onto your system to fix the problem.

Cheers,

Sascha.

eidrup wrote:is this what you are looking for?

I've switch out the domail with 'our domail'.

21849 >>> 220 mail.our domain.com ESMTP Sendmail 8.13.1/8.13.1/Submit; Tue, 16 May 2006 15:19:09 -0700
21849 <<< EHLO mail.our domain.com
21849 >>> 250-mail.our domain.com Hello root@localhost, pleased to meet you
21849 >>> 250-ENHANCEDSTATUSCODES
21849 >>> 250-PIPELINING
21849 >>> 250-8BITMIME
21849 >>> 250-SIZE
21849 >>> 250-DSN
21849 >>> 250-AUTH GSSAPI DIGEST-MD5 CRAM-MD5
21849 >>> 250-DELIVERBY
21849 >>> 250 HELP
21849 <<< MAIL FROM: <lManning@our domain.com> RET=FULL ENVID=11520763.1147802887666.JavaMail.SYSTEM@www1
21849 >>> 250 2.1.0 <lManning@our domain.com>... Sender ok
21849 <<< RCPT TO: <user@hotmail.com> NOTIFY=DELAY,FAILURE
21849 >>> 250 2.1.5 <user@hotmail.com>... Recipient ok
21849 <<< DATA
21849 >>> 354 Enter mail, end with "." on a line by itself
21849 <<< Received: from www1 ( 10.0.2.20)
21849 <<< by mail.our domain.com (Scalix SMTP Relay 10.0.1.3)
21849 <<< via ESMTP; Tue, 16 May 2006 11:09:59 -0700 (PDT)
21849 <<< Date: Tue, 16 May 2006 11:08:07 -0700
21849 <<< From: "Leslie Manning" <lManning@our domain.com>
21849 <<< Reply-To: "Leslie Manning" <lManning@our domain.com>
21849 <<< To: user@hotmail.com
21849 <<< Message-ID: <11520763.1147802887666.JavaMail.SYSTEM@interpol>
21849 <<< Subject: ISSA CFT Independent Study
21849 <<< x-scalix-Hops: 1
21849 <<< X-Mailer: ColdFusion MX Application Server
21849 <<< Mime-Version: 1.0
21849 <<< Content-Type: text/plain;
21849 <<< charset="US-ASCII"
21849 <<< Content-Disposition: inline
21849 <<<
21849 <<<
21849 >>>
---------- email content ---------
21849 >>>
21849 >>>
21849 >>> .
21849 <<< 250 2.0.0 k4GMJJLX021858 Message accepted for delivery
21849 >>> 250 2.0.0 k4GMJ9bc021849 Message accepted for delivery
21849 <<< QUIT
21849 >>> 221 2.0.0 mail.our domain.com closing connection
21849 >>> QUIT

This conversation does not indicate any problem. We would need to see more data, e.g. /var/log/maillog or more data from the /tmp/scalix-sendmail.log file. You can send that to support at scalix dot com.

One more thing: when you mail using

mail -s "test" SomeExternalMail@gmail.com

then add some text and end with enter "." enter, how long does it take to arrive at the destination?

Are there any Spam-Appliances or other message manglers in place?

Cheers,

Sascha.

using the mail -s command, emails go threw quickly.. I've sent an email off to support@scalix to get this thing fixed. Thank you for all your help.