I have a fresh install of FreeBSD 5.4 on a Dual Opteron server. Only site is a vBulletin forum. Whenever I use vBulletin PHP mailer exim spawns numerous processes and takes my server down. The default setting for vBulletin is 500 emails at once. If I throttle it back to 200 or less it still takes a load but doesn't crash. My old P4 2.8 coudl do 500 with no sweat. What could exim be doing?
exim takes my server down
- Thread starter eSology
- Start date
Are you sure it's exim and not PHP? Try sending the emails via smtp instead of the mail() function if that's what your doing.
Another test you can try is sending 500 emails throught a different application (not PHP) and see if it has the same effect.
Another test you can try is sending 500 emails throught a different application (not PHP) and see if it has the same effect.
Using SMTP mode works fine with minimal load on the CPUs but it is really slow compared to vBulletins PHP mailer. And I mean deathly slow. Takes about 3 minutes to cycle through 2000 emails using the vBulletin PHP mailer and almost 15 minutes using SMTP via the vBulletin control panel.
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nobaloney
NoBaloney Internet Svcs - In Memoriam †
You've written your own reply. You wrote that the vBulletin PHP mailer takes 3 minutes but overloads the server, and that SMTP mailing takes 15 minutes.
You don't say, and I don't know, what method your PHP mail function is using. But it appears to be creating multiple processes to deliver multiple emails. That's creating the problem you're experiencing. The exim SMTP input is self-limited, based on settings in the exim.conf file and/or the exim startup command line.
You really can't compare your new server with another server because of the variables involved, such as system speed (processor speed, disk speed), mail server (exim, postfix, sendmail, qmail, etc.), connection speed, and the amount of preprocessing done by your mailer (exim runs all SMTP email through SpamAssassin, for example).
Sure you can tweak the exim.conf file so exim will start more processes to do everything faster, but doing so will impact your server even more.
Do you really have a problem with taking 15 minutes to send 2,000 emails? That's 192,000 emails per day.
Jeff
You don't say, and I don't know, what method your PHP mail function is using. But it appears to be creating multiple processes to deliver multiple emails. That's creating the problem you're experiencing. The exim SMTP input is self-limited, based on settings in the exim.conf file and/or the exim startup command line.
You really can't compare your new server with another server because of the variables involved, such as system speed (processor speed, disk speed), mail server (exim, postfix, sendmail, qmail, etc.), connection speed, and the amount of preprocessing done by your mailer (exim runs all SMTP email through SpamAssassin, for example).
Sure you can tweak the exim.conf file so exim will start more processes to do everything faster, but doing so will impact your server even more.
Do you really have a problem with taking 15 minutes to send 2,000 emails? That's 192,000 emails per day.
Jeff
Both servers are running FreeBSD and DirectAdmin. No other sites or special configuration. SpamAssassin was not enabled in either control panel. I went line by line and both exim.conf files were exactlly the same. So based on what you are saying it has to be the php.ini file. Correct? Whenever I kick off sending the SMTP mailer I see one exim process in my TOP output. And during the trading day, with work and everything else going on 15 minutes is a long time to babysit the control panel. I guess it is hard for me to comprehend how a machine that "appears" to be configured exactlly the same but is twice as robust with hardware can't do the same thing or better.
nobaloney
NoBaloney Internet Svcs - In Memoriam †
I think you've again written your own reply. Perhaps you should compare the two php.ini files.
Jeff
Jeff