I set the max_smtp_accept to 80 and the server continued to use all free memory and load the machine well over 250%
So as a test I used my firewall and blocked port 25. and then rebooted.
the cpu useage went to about 5% instead of the 260% it was running.
I then went in and set the default for the catchall accounts on the email servers to ignore if a user does not exist and then reenabled the port 25.
cpu is working at about 6% - 9% and all is going well. I think it was responding to the catchalls and resending like crazy, interesting now, free memory is now 870 meg instead of 3.5 meg
so exim was causing the problem.. but not like I would have expected. is there any way to set the default when a domain is created for the catchall to be set to drop unless otherwise set by the end user ?
Thanks for all the help.
Bill