chuck wrote:
>
> Greg,
> I had a similar problem a few months back. Turns out that the
> permissions/ownership on my Maildirs were kludged. I suspect you may have a
> similar problem. Are you using user accounts or virtual domains?
No virtual domains, only user accounts. It's a normal RedHat 6.1
install, so PAM and shadow passwords are enabled. I've checked the
permissions and they look good (but please tell me what you are
using). This problem happens on all user accounts so if there is a
permissions problem every account has it.
It's not an authentication issue because I can telnet to port 110,
login, and retrieve a message. The authentication works fine and
there's no delay at all. But when I retrieve a big message I can
actually see it stall out. After the first chunk of the message the
server spits it out in little pieces with long delays in between. I
suspected pop3d was starved for memory, but stopping Samba frees up
lots of RAM, and top is showing plenty of RAM available (over 8 megs)
and 98% CPU idle.
At first I suspected a bad NIC or cable somewhere on the LAN, but I
think I've eliminated that possibility. I also double-checked my DNS
settings and all looks OK (the mail server also runs DNS). SMTP is
more sensitive to bad DNS than pop3d, and there is no delay sending
mail from the clients to the server, or from the server out to other
SMTP servers.
I'm still stumped.
Thanks!
Greg Jorgensen
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
>
> regards,
> Chuck Werbick
> The Wirehouse Internet Cafe
>
>
> Greg Jorgensen writes:
>
> > I manage a server at a small business. The server is a P133 with 32
> > megs of RAM, running RedHat 6.1, Samba, and qmail 1.03. There are
> > only five users connected to the server, all running Windows 98, and
> > they are very light users. The entire office gets maybe 20 emails a
> > day.
> >
> > For some reason email messages longer than just a few lines take a
> > VERY long time to download, with numerous "server timeout" messages.
> > This is not specifically a qmail problem (see my tests below), but
> > I'm hoping someone will have some clues.
> >
> > The qmail-pop3d .run file (running from supervise) is:
> >
> > tcpserver -H -R -l server.local.net 0 110 \
> > qmail-popup server.local.net \
> > checkpassword qmail-pop3d Maildir 2>&1 \
> > splogger pop3d
> >
> > (I've tried this with & without splogger, tcpserver, and supervise.)
> >
> > Sending a message approx. 100K locally (never leaves the LAN) can
> > take 5-10 minutes to retrieve. A message with several large
> > attachments can take HOURS to download.
> >
> > These are all of the things I've tried, to no avail. As far as I can
> > tell nothing has an effect.
> >
> > * Sending the message is fast, so SMTP service and overall network
> > performance are OK.
> >
> > * Copying the same file to/from the server (onto a Samba share) is
> > fast.
> >
> > * DNS checked and re-checked; all workstations see each other, and
> > pings to/from the server are under 1ms.
> >
> > * Replaced qmail-qpop3d with gnu-pop3d.
> >
> > * Replaced entire qmail setup with postfix/gnu-pop3d.
> >
> > * Stopped all unnecessary services. Stopped Samba.
> >
> > * We're using MS Outlook Express. Downloaded Eudora 4.3 and tried it.
> >
> > Same problem. In fact telnetting to port 110 and retrieving the
> > message is slow.
> >
> > * Authenticating to qmail-pop3d works OK, so there's no problem or
> > reverse-DNS lookup problem. It's the actual message retrieval that
> > takes a long time and/or times out.
> >
> > * NIC diagnostics are OK. Nothing unusual in the Linux boot messages
> > or logs.
> >
> > * Replaced the NIC in the server.
> >
> > * Disconnected all workstations and the firewall (WebRamp 700s) from
> > the switch (Bay Networks 10/100 8-port) so just the server and one
> > workstation were connected.
> >
> >
> > I have searched Deja and used Google to scour the web but I haven't
> > found anyone else reporting this problem. I've tried everything I can
> >
> > think of. Please post suggestions here or send email.
> >
> > Thanks!
> >
> > Greg Jorgensen
> > Programmer, pedant, raconteur
> > Portland, Oregon USA
> > gregj#pobox.com
> >
> >
>
>
>
