[cobalt-users] [Raq 3] Sendmail quits responding problem

[Joseph R Brennskag <jbrennsk@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Hello all...

I have been trying to work through a problem I am having with sendmail.
Sendmail will stop responding once the number of child processes reaches 12.
When I run the command 'ps -aux' to check the open processes, I will see a
number (usually 10 or 12) of 'stalled' or open sendmail processes like the
following:


USER       PID %CPU %MEM   VSZ  RSS TTY      STAT START   TIME COMMAND

root      1170  0.0  1.0  2368 1332 ?        S    09:52   0:00 sendmail:
server rmny-stat-t05.citlink.net [170.215.147.5] cmd

My question is how do I interpret what is happening on this line? This will
be repeated several times at different times and the process never closes.
A review of the mail log reveals that there is no one checking mail from
that IP at that time nor sending mail at that time.  It is a customer's IP
address. I have done a search but cannot find how to interpret that command.

I know that I can increase the number of child processes allowed in
sendmail.cf, but since these processes don't die it will not help.


Joe Brennskag
Hardy Telecom
304-897-9911
joe@xxxxxxxxxxxx