Re: [cobalt-users] Qube2 Crashes without obvious cause

[Mike Vanecek <nospam99@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

On Mon, 15 Jan 2001 23:27:58 +1100, Malcolm McLeary <mmcleary@xxxxxxx> wrote:

[snip]

:>  5:02pm  up  1:19,  1 user,  load average: 0.38, 0.49, 0.35
:>70 processes: 65 sleeping, 5 running, 0 zombie, 0 stopped
:>CPU states: 37.2% user, 43.5% system, 73.1% nice, 20.0% idle
:>Mem:   63396K av,  62484K used,    912K free,  35528K shrd,   8152K buff
:>Swap: 130748K av,    176K used, 130572K free                 37260K cached
:>
:>  PID USER     PRI  NI  SIZE  RSS SHARE STAT  LIB %CPU %MEM   TIME COMMAND
:> 2102 yu-lan    19  10  1116 1116   932 R N     0 64.9  1.7   0:03 imapd

[snip]

:>IMAP seems very busy ... is this "normal".

Compared to my system - looks busy for just 1 user.

:>Having a closer look at the inboxes I found that a couple were large, but
:>not unreasonable.  Having a look at the users home directories I found that
:>each of the users had created quite a few mail folders, some of which were
:>quite large.

Same set up I run. Have you checked the disk quotas to make sure the users are
not running out of disk space during an imap session. I run quite large
folders most of the time.

:>Normally I wouldn't think any of this would cause a problem, but after
:>having a look at the customers workstations I found that OutLook 2000 was
:>configured to check ALL folders for new mail ... this is really dumb as new
:>mail only ever appears in ones inbox.

Yea, don't know why that is the default. I just checked and realized that I
had not unchecked that option in Outlook 2000. Hence, I was checking all boxes
- unchecked it now though. Still, for your situation, same configuration.

:>Anyway, is it possible that IMAP is causing the hang when too much is asked
:>of it?

Bugs can be data dependent, but I have not had problems under a similar setup.

:>Perhaps I'm barking up the wrong tree, but this Qube is generally stable out
:>of hours when there are no users and has been know to hang while the users
:>are in a meeting or out to lunch when nothing is happening but OutLook
:>continues to check for mail.
:>
:>Perhaps its OutLook 2000 which is the problem as all my other customers are
:>happy with OutLook Express.  However I have a problem with the concept of a
:>mail client bringing down a server.  Actually it would be nice to blame
:>Microsoft, but my customer can't live without Office 2000 and in particular
:>OutLook 2000.

One can monitor the imap activity within in Outlook as it scans the server. I
understand the client's needs as I use it much the same way. If it were me, I
would check the disk space issue (don't know how much the imap process needs,
nor where it needs it, especially for temp storage during a session). I would
ask the user to send/receive in outlook while watching the imap dialog to see
if it hangs and where during the imap session. Then I would disable checking
all folders.

:>Since this problem has developed over time I have a feeling that it is
:>related to the gradual accumulation of email.  Hence I have suggested to the
:>customer that they create a bunch of local folders instead of IMAP folders
:>and see if stability returns.

The difficulty with that suggestion is that it removes the reason for imap
folders - i.e., email mobility.  Gradual accumulation of email --> more disk
space requirements?

:>Any fresh ideas (or the solution) would be gratefully accepted.

Turn telnet (sshd surely), and have yu-lan do several send/receives while you
monitor disk space. Have yu-lan monitor the OL2K imap activity during the same
time. Hope you can find it, I know it has been a thorn under the saddle for
you.

Mike.