I'm seeing new behavior on two previously well-working mail servers that is 
causing me problems. I also have a third server that is not yet exhibiting 
this behavior. All three servers are running Ubuntu 7.10. One of the two 
servers has the following Courier-MTA packages installed:
[EMAIL PROTECTED]:~# dpkg --list | grep courier
ii  courier-authdaemon                    0.59.3-2ubuntu1
ii  courier-authlib                       0.59.3-2ubuntu1
ii  courier-authlib-mysql                 0.59.3-2ubuntu1
ii  courier-authlib-userdb                0.59.3-2ubuntu1
ii  courier-base                          0.56.0-2ubuntu2
ii  courier-imap                          4.1.3-2ubuntu2
ii  courier-imap-ssl                      4.1.3-2ubuntu2
ii  courier-maildrop                      0.56.0-2ubuntu2
ii  courier-mta                           0.56.0-2ubuntu2
ii  courier-mta-ssl                       0.56.0-2ubuntu2
ii  courier-pop                           0.56.0-2ubuntu2
ii  courier-pop-ssl                       0.56.0-2ubuntu2
ii  courier-ssl                           0.56.0-2ubuntu2

The other two had the the following Courier-MTA packages installed:
[EMAIL PROTECTED]:~# dpkg --list | grep courier
ii  courier-authdaemon                    0.59.3-2ubuntu1
ii  courier-authlib                       0.59.3-2ubuntu1
ii  courier-authlib-userdb                0.59.3-2ubuntu1
ii  courier-base                          0.56.0-2ubuntu2
ii  courier-mta                           0.56.0-2ubuntu2
ii  courier-mta-ssl                       0.56.0-2ubuntu2
ii  courier-ssl                           0.56.0-2ubuntu2

Because of the problem, I removed Courier from one of the servers and 
installed Postfix.

The first server is used for regular e-mail sending and receiving for about 
125 accounts. The other two servers are used only for sending administrative 
alerts (cron job reports and the like) to myself.

A few weeks ago, one of the two administrative servers started exhibiting the 
behavior where it would send up to four e-mails and then stop sending any 
more. The rest would just sit in the mail queue. What showed up in the task 
list (ps axf) was something like this:
 4203 ?        S      0:00 /usr/lib/courier/courier/courierd
16944 ?        S      0:01  \_ /usr/lib/courier/courier/courierd
16945 ?        S      0:00      \_ ./courieruucp
16946 ?        S      0:00      \_ ./courierlocal
16947 ?        S      0:00      \_ ./courierfax
16948 ?        S      0:00      \_ ./courieresmtp
17455 ?        R    1960:24      |   \_ courieresmtp 0 flattfamily.com
17519 ?        R    1946:14      |   \_ courieresmtp 1 flattfamily.com
11690 ?        R    639:03      |   \_ courieresmtp 2 unlv.nevada.edu
26907 ?        R    170:27      |   \_ courieresmtp 3 lvlug.org
27056 ?        R    167:02      |   \_ courieresmtp 4 enshealth.com
27113 ?        R    166:36      |   \_ courieresmtp 5 flattfamily.com
16949 ?        S      0:00      \_ ./courierdsn

and what showed up in top was something like this:
11690 daemon    25   0  2464  536  532 R 16.7  0.1 639:17.33 courieresmtp
17455 daemon    25   0  2460  536  532 R 16.7  0.1   1960:38 courieresmtp
17519 daemon    25   0  2464  536  532 R 16.7  0.1   1946:28 courieresmtp
26907 daemon    25   0  2460 1120  580 R 16.7  0.1 170:41.53 courieresmtp
27056 daemon    25   0  2464 1120  580 R 16.7  0.1 167:16.21 courieresmtp
27113 daemon    25   0  2464 1100  580 R 16.7  0.1 166:50.70 courieresmtp

I could not kill the processes and I could not restart the system w/o 
physically pressing the power button. (I would get an error message at system 
halt to the effect that the drive was busy.)  When I restarted the server, it 
would send the next four messages, then hang again. There were no error 
messages that I could find in any of the system logs.

I spent quite a while attempting to figure out what was causing the behavior 
but could not. My searches on the Internet came up with only a few unrelated 
results. I tried uninstalling Courier and reinstalling it several times 
(thinking I had corrupt files or something similar), even to the point of 
deleting all Courier files after the install and manually reconfiguring the 
system after the reinstall, but every time Courier would hang on four 
messages and stop sending any more. Finally, I totally removed Courier and 
installed Postfix, and I haven't had a problem since.

Today, I noticed that my main mail server is exhibiting the same behavior. The 
examples above are from it. The second administrative mail sever has not yet 
started doing this, but at this point, I'm expecting it to start happening. 
The reason I didn't notice the mail server's behavior is because it is still 
sending e-mail (which the other one did not do). Those six processes are, 
however, using all the CPU and making everything very slow.

I really do not want to go through the effort of reconfiguring the mail server 
with different software. I have enough other emergencies on my plate this 
week that I won't be finished for two or three weeks. :^)

Does anyone have any clue as to what might be causing this behavior and how I 
can stop it?


-- 
Jason Flatt
Father of Six:  http://www.flattfamily.com/ (Joseph, 15; Cramer, 13; Travis, 
11; Angela; Harry, 8; and William, 2)
Linux User:     http://www.kubuntu.org/
Drupal Fanatic: http://drupal.org/

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