RE: [cobalt-users] CPU Heavily Loaded - RaQ4R

["Rick Ewart" <cobalt@xxxxxxxxx>]

> > 
> > On Mon, 26 Jan 2004 15:34:29 -0000, Richard Sidlin wrote
> > > Over the past two weeks, I have been getting a lot of these 
> > warnings. 
> > > The general area is about 5-7% load average. At the same time, I 
> > > installed a number of patches (about 7 or 8 - was a bit behind on 
> > > them). Would any of those patches account for this? I run 
> > MailScanner 
> > > with Sophos and Spam Assassin.
> > 
> > Wouldn't account for two weeks ago, but with the latest email 
> > virus in the wild, I've seen more of a performance hit due to 
> > extra processing with MailScanner. Check load stats with 
> > 'top' to see what applications are hitting your CPU the 
> > hardest ... there was a troublesome apache patch recently ... 
> > could be that, or it could be just MailScanner/SpamAssassin 
> > doing it's job.
> 
> Thanks. Looking at Top, the Sophos Sweep process seems to hit 
> the processor quite hard. Would you know if this has been changed
> recently. I think I downloaded the latest engine at about the 
> same time.

I got the same thing going on right now - first time. Looking around,
it's the a/v scanner that is doing it. Might have something to do with
the fact that my virus detection rate is about 8 or 9x normal. Damn
viruses. Just hope it passes soon.

In the meantime, its probably good time to consider your disaster
recovery and backup operations. Are you maybe running your server too
hard on a day to day basis? If you have been getting it for weeks,
perhaps you need to monitor the load for a while and consider spreading
the load onto another unit. I was once told in the forums that when load
hits about 3 is when you know you are pretty much up to the max you want
it on a regular basis.

I think the 200 site limit for Raq4s was designed conceptually with
static sites and little email activity. Certainly not with 3rd party
SpamAssassin and virus scanning, plus intrusion detection and all the
other goodies we tend to load on to them to properly manage them. A few
hundred regular email users will eat up much of a box, from my
experience.

HTH.
Rick