Re: [vchkpw] Silly Qmail (Queue) Syndrome and Spamcontrol Patch

2004-09-10 Thread Devendra Singh
Hi Tom,
Thanks.
At 08/09/04 20:42 (), you wrote:
On Sep 7, 2004, at 11:54 PM, Devendra Singh wrote:
c) what Anti-Virus and Anti-Spam tools are you using
AntiVirus is clamav-0.75.1 and AntiSpam is SpamAssassin-2.63 with patched 
version of qmail-scanner Qmail-Scanner-1.23st (st patch) from 
http://xoomer.virgilio.it/j.toribio/qmail-scanner/. This patched version 
of qmail-scanner has been used to selectively enable only 20% of the 
domains to have AntiVirus/AntiSpam enabled. I am also using the 
--sa-reject option to have spam messages with a score higher than 
sa-delete (score of 16 in my case) to be rejected before the smtp session 
is closed.
I'd probably point the finger at qmail-scanner.  It's a major resource hog 
and starts a perl instance every time a message comes in.
I do agree, in fact I knew. Weighing Options.
I use clamav and SpamAssassin as well, but use qscanq (google for it) and 
qmail-spamc (included with SpamAssassin) to block viruses and score spam 
on messages at the qmail-queue stage.  Unfortunately, without patching, 
you won't be able to selectively enable it per domain or have an sa-reject 
option.
I would look at qscanq as well as QMVC suggested by Dr Erwin. I would also 
look for any other options if possible. But, I need to enable / disable 
AntiVirus  AntiSpam for Selective email-addresses (and domains). Also, 
Clients requirements have forced me to quarantine Spam above certain level 
and should be intimated to the sender (just in case its's a real sender). 
If we bounce the spam it will result into a double bounce mostly. Hence 
rejection is required.

You could look at some of the patches Ken Jones of Inter7 has put together 
to add SpamAssassin integration to vdelivermail.  This would offload the 
spam processing from qmail-smptd, and can be enabled on a per-domain 
basis.  You could then replace qmail-scanner with qscanq to block viruses 
(for all domains) at the smtpd level.
Where can I find those patches by Ken? Any URL please (I tried searching 
the archives).

Some hints:
- It might me worthwilhe to reduce the incoming-concurrency. Drop it to 30.
Any figures less than 80 would cause lot many Servers not to get smtp 
connect to our Server during peak time of 0100 to 0500 hrs EDT.
Maybe not.  You need to determine whether a lower concurrency will reduce 
the amount of time spent on each message and ultimately allow more 
connections per hour.  Once you start hitting virtual memory, all of the 
current connections will get bogged down.
Take a look at how many messages are processed per hour at 100, and then 
at 80.  If the queue is growing and messages aren't getting delivered, 
there's not much benefit to queueing the message instead of just not 
accepting the connection.
I am experimenting on it.
However, I have got sigh of relief (probably for the time being), by adding 
sbl-xbl.spamhaus.org to rblsmtpd (I was already using bl.spamcop.net). This 
has reduced the SMTPD threads a bit.

Dr Erwin,
May I request Dr Erwin to get reply on my reply to his reply in this 
thread. I have already tried the newanalyse package on a development 
(Fedora) Server. It works, great. The qmFind did not compile.

One more question Dr Erwin, The SMTP log is more informative after your 
SpamControl Patch but it lacks the IP addresses in front of the entries. 
Have I missed something or its like that only. Here is a sample.

@400041416592147f8924 Accept::SNDR::Relay_Client: MailFrom: 
[EMAIL PROTECTED] RcptTo: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
@4000414165921589e0bc tcpserver: deny 3214 
x.x.xxx:111.222.333.444:25 :218.20.230.246::63771 MAXCONNIP:5
@40004141659217e0a9cc Accept::ORIG::Local_Sender: MailFrom: 
[EMAIL PROTECTED] RcptTo: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
@4000414165921e41b07c Accept::ORIG::Local_Sender: MailFrom: 
[EMAIL PROTECTED] RcptTo: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
@4000414165cb2f16d51c tcpserver: status: 69/80
@4000414165cc0cfb055c Accept::RCPT::Rcpthosts_Rcptto: MailFrom: 
[EMAIL PROTECTED] RcptTo: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
@4000414165cc181127dc tcpserver: status: 70/80
@4000414165f0227f90dc tcpserver: ok 5737 
x.x.xxx:111.222.333.444:25 :61.11.87.37::2812
@4000414165f025019c24 tcpserver: ok 5736 
x.x.xxx:111.222.333.444:25 :203.145.134.238:dvromafh:2447
@4000414165f026fdc5fc Reject::SNDR::Invalid_Relay: MailFrom: 
[EMAIL PROTECTED] RcptTo: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
@4000414165f02792fd34 tcpserver: ok 5174 
x.x.xxx:111.222.333.444:25 :61.1.220.108::1854
@4000414166381540b25c Reject::ORIG::No_DNSMX: MailFrom: 
[EMAIL PROTECTED] RcptTo: [EMAIL PROTECTED]

Thanks.
Devendra Singh


Re: [vchkpw] Silly Qmail (Queue) Syndrome and Spamcontrol Patch

2004-09-08 Thread Devendra Singh
Hi Dr Erwin,
At 07/09/04 13:23 (), you wrote:
Hi,
At 11:15 07.09.04 +0530, you wrote:
At 06/09/04 22:15 (), Erwin Hoffmann wrote:
Hi,

At 20:11 06.09.04 +0530, you wrote:
 Dear Erwin,
 
 Sorry for question not really related to Vpopmail.
 
 It seems that I am hit by Silly Qmail (Queue) Syndrome.
 
 I am using the Spamcontrol Patch v2.2.12 along with vpopmail-5.4.6, but
 have not used the experimental bigtodo.
 
 Wished to apply the bigtodo. I would like to get clarified that whether
you
 bigtodo is based on ext_todo patch or big-todo patch or both. I had not
 initially compiled the bigtodo thinking that it is experimental.
 
 What do you suggest.

Well. At first you have to tell why you think you are hit by the Silly
Qmail Syndrom. Any hints ?

Second. Apart from the big-todo enhencement, my implementation of Andre
Oppermann's performance enhancements dont work well. After investigation a
look of time and testing I didn't find any significant performance
improvement.
Note: The code in SPAMCONTROL is not the ext-big-todo; however it is based
of Andre's first suggestion to influence qmail's scheduler for mail
processing; which was buggy by itself.

Third. The best thing is to avoid bounces to non-existing accounts.
Use my RECIPIENTS extension as part of Qmail or perhaps the real-rcptto
patch.

The forthcoming SPAMCONTROL version will include verion 0.42 of the
RECIPIENTS extension; check my Qmail page 
(http://www.fehcom.de/qmail.html).

regards.
--eh.

Hi Erwin,

Thanks for nice reply.

I am attaching Queue Size graph (5 Minute Average) updated Tuesday, 7
September 2004 at 0:50 (EDT).

You can notice between 0400 - 1000 hrs (EDT) a quite high Mail Queue.
During that time period the smtpd is running to the tune of 100/100. But
the send is running to the tune of local 3/15 remote 5/40. The messages in
queue but not yet preprocessed goes on increasing in wild. When the smtpd
runs to the tune of 85/100 its all okay. This has started happening on
almost every start of the week, when huge volume of genuine + virus
infected customers mails start pouring in.

Ok. Until now, you did not tell us what hardware and network connection you
have. Anyway. My experience using a 2*1G PIII and fast SCSI Disks on
FreeBSD show some similar behavior.
Its
Linux slsp-da4p21 2.4.18-18.7.x #1 [Red Hat Linux release 7.3 (Valhalla)]
Intel(R) Pentium(R) CPU 2.40GHz
cache size  : 512 KB
RAM:1GB
SWAP: 2GB
HDD: Barracuda 7200.7   (It's an IDE Drive)
Model Number:ST380011A
Capacity:80 GB
Speed:7200 rpm
Seek time:8.5 ms avg
Interface:Ultra ATA/100
df -m
Filesystem   1M-blocks  Used Available Use% Mounted on
/dev/hda373990 16422 53810  24% /
/dev/hda1   114 9 999% /boot
none  441 0   4400% /dev/shm
fdisk -l
Disk /dev/hda: 255 heads, 63 sectors, 9729 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 bytes
   Device BootStart   EndBlocks   Id  System
/dev/hda1   * 115120456   83  Linux
/dev/hda216   146   1052257+  82  Linux swap
/dev/hda3   147  9729  76975447+  83  Linux
The /home/vpopmail/domains and /var/qmail/queue both are on /dev/hda3
Network Card: Realtek|RTL-8139/8139C
The Server is connected to a 100 MBPS Network Port limited to 10 MBPS (10 
M/s is equal to over 3 terabytes of traffic per month).

mii-tool -v
eth0: negotiated 10baseT-FD, link ok
  product info: vendor 00:00:00, model 0 rev 0
  basic mode:   autonegotiation enabled
  basic status: autonegotiation complete, link ok
  capabilities: 100baseTx-FD 100baseTx-HD 10baseT-FD 10baseT-HD
  advertising:  100baseTx-FD 100baseTx-HD 10baseT-FD 10baseT-HD
  link partner: 10baseT-FD 10baseT-HD
I have not yet noticed any signs of Network Bottleneck.
I am not using RECIPIENTS extension, but using badrcptto for
whitelisting mechanism, which works very well (might be a bit slow due to
the reason that lookup is being done into txt database).
Ok. Good choice.
I am also using
http://linux.voyager.hr/ucspi-tcp/tcpserver-limits-2004-07-25.diff patch to
limit concurrent connection from single IP. This helps identifying Virus
trodden computers and denying them connection (it's a boon).
Good.
I also have Caching-DNS on this Server (djbdns).
Excellent.
About the todo patches the comments of Dave Sill (of Qmail Handbook fame)
are interesting to note in the thread:

Outbound email rate slows when inbound rate is high
http://groups.google.com/groups?hl=enlr=ie=UTF-8c2coff=1threadm=e6c47de
7.0310091325.147cade4%40posting.google.comrnum=2prev=/groups%3Fq%3Dext-tod
o%26hl%3Den%26lr%3D%26ie%3DUTF-8%26c2coff%3D1%26selm%3De6c47de7.0310091325.1
47cade4%2540posting.google.com%26rnum%3D2
Dave is right. No doubt.
Also one can have a look at the thread
ext-todo and big-todo patches
http://groups.google.com/groups?hl=enlr=ie=UTF-8c2coff=1threadm=wx0lm56
pfo0.fsf%40sws5.ctd.ornl.govrnum=1prev=/groups%3Fhl%3Den%26lr%3D%26ie%3DUT

Re: [vchkpw] Silly Qmail (Queue) Syndrome and Spamcontrol Patch

2004-09-08 Thread Tom Collins
On Sep 7, 2004, at 11:54 PM, Devendra Singh wrote:
c) what Anti-Virus and Anti-Spam tools are you using
AntiVirus is clamav-0.75.1 and AntiSpam is SpamAssassin-2.63 with 
patched version of qmail-scanner Qmail-Scanner-1.23st (st patch) 
from http://xoomer.virgilio.it/j.toribio/qmail-scanner/. This patched 
version of qmail-scanner has been used to selectively enable only 20% 
of the domains to have AntiVirus/AntiSpam enabled. I am also using the 
--sa-reject option to have spam messages with a score higher than 
sa-delete (score of 16 in my case) to be rejected before the smtp 
session is closed.
I'd probably point the finger at qmail-scanner.  It's a major resource 
hog and starts a perl instance every time a message comes in.

I use clamav and SpamAssassin as well, but use qscanq (google for it) 
and qmail-spamc (included with SpamAssassin) to block viruses and score 
spam on messages at the qmail-queue stage.  Unfortunately, without 
patching, you won't be able to selectively enable it per domain or have 
an sa-reject option.

You could look at some of the patches Ken Jones of Inter7 has put 
together to add SpamAssassin integration to vdelivermail.  This would 
offload the spam processing from qmail-smptd, and can be enabled on a 
per-domain basis.  You could then replace qmail-scanner with qscanq to 
block viruses (for all domains) at the smtpd level.

Some hints:
- It might me worthwilhe to reduce the incoming-concurrency. Drop it 
to 30.
Any figures less than 80 would cause lot many Servers not to get smtp 
connect to our Server during peak time of 0100 to 0500 hrs EDT.
Maybe not.  You need to determine whether a lower concurrency will 
reduce the amount of time spent on each message and ultimately allow 
more connections per hour.  Once you start hitting virtual memory, all 
of the current connections will get bogged down.

Take a look at how many messages are processed per hour at 100, and 
then at 80.  If the queue is growing and messages aren't getting 
delivered, there's not much benefit to queueing the message instead of 
just not accepting the connection.

--
Tom Collins  -  [EMAIL PROTECTED]
QmailAdmin: http://qmailadmin.sf.net/  Vpopmail: http://vpopmail.sf.net/
Info on the Sniffter hand-held Network Tester: http://sniffter.com/


Re: [vchkpw] Silly Qmail (Queue) Syndrome and Spamcontrol Patch

2004-09-07 Thread Erwin Hoffmann
Hi,

At 11:15 07.09.04 +0530, you wrote:
At 06/09/04 22:15 (), Erwin Hoffmann wrote:
Hi,

At 20:11 06.09.04 +0530, you wrote:
 Dear Erwin,
 
 Sorry for question not really related to Vpopmail.
 
 It seems that I am hit by Silly Qmail (Queue) Syndrome.
 
 I am using the Spamcontrol Patch v2.2.12 along with vpopmail-5.4.6, but
 have not used the experimental bigtodo.
 
 Wished to apply the bigtodo. I would like to get clarified that whether
you
 bigtodo is based on ext_todo patch or big-todo patch or both. I had not
 initially compiled the bigtodo thinking that it is experimental.
 
 What do you suggest.

Well. At first you have to tell why you think you are hit by the Silly
Qmail Syndrom. Any hints ?

Second. Apart from the big-todo enhencement, my implementation of Andre
Oppermann's performance enhancements dont work well. After investigation a
look of time and testing I didn't find any significant performance
improvement.
Note: The code in SPAMCONTROL is not the ext-big-todo; however it is based
of Andre's first suggestion to influence qmail's scheduler for mail
processing; which was buggy by itself.

Third. The best thing is to avoid bounces to non-existing accounts.
Use my RECIPIENTS extension as part of Qmail or perhaps the real-rcptto
patch.

The forthcoming SPAMCONTROL version will include verion 0.42 of the
RECIPIENTS extension; check my Qmail page (http://www.fehcom.de/qmail.html).

regards.
--eh.

Hi Erwin,

Thanks for nice reply.

I am attaching Queue Size graph (5 Minute Average) updated Tuesday, 7 
September 2004 at 0:50 (EDT).

You can notice between 0400 - 1000 hrs (EDT) a quite high Mail Queue. 
During that time period the smtpd is running to the tune of 100/100. But 
the send is running to the tune of local 3/15 remote 5/40. The messages in 
queue but not yet preprocessed goes on increasing in wild. When the smtpd 
runs to the tune of 85/100 its all okay. This has started happening on 
almost every start of the week, when huge volume of genuine + virus 
infected customers mails start pouring in.

Ok. Until now, you did not tell us what hardware and network connection you
have. Anyway. My experience using a 2*1G PIII and fast SCSI Disks on
FreeBSD show some similar behavior. 


I am not using RECIPIENTS extension, but using badrcptto for 
whitelisting mechanism, which works very well (might be a bit slow due to 
the reason that lookup is being done into txt database).

Ok. Good choice.

I am also using 
http://linux.voyager.hr/ucspi-tcp/tcpserver-limits-2004-07-25.diff patch to 
limit concurrent connection from single IP. This helps identifying Virus 
trodden computers and denying them connection (it's a boon).

Good.

I also have Caching-DNS on this Server (djbdns).

Excellent.

About the todo patches the comments of Dave Sill (of Qmail Handbook fame) 
are interesting to note in the thread:

Outbound email rate slows when inbound rate is high
http://groups.google.com/groups?hl=enlr=ie=UTF-8c2coff=1threadm=e6c47de
7.0310091325.147cade4%40posting.google.comrnum=2prev=/groups%3Fq%3Dext-tod
o%26hl%3Den%26lr%3D%26ie%3DUTF-8%26c2coff%3D1%26selm%3De6c47de7.0310091325.1
47cade4%2540posting.google.com%26rnum%3D2

Dave is right. No doubt.

Also one can have a look at the thread
ext-todo and big-todo patches
http://groups.google.com/groups?hl=enlr=ie=UTF-8c2coff=1threadm=wx0lm56
pfo0.fsf%40sws5.ctd.ornl.govrnum=1prev=/groups%3Fhl%3Den%26lr%3D%26ie%3DUT
F-8%26c2coff%3D1%26q%3Ddave%2Bsill%2Bext-todo%2Band%2Bbig-todo

Ok.

I tried to apply the patch 
http://www.nrg4u.com/qmail/ext_todo-20030105.patch over and above 
spamcontrol but it failed at:

patch p1  ext_todo-20030105.patch
patching file p1
patching file EXTTODO-INFO
patching file FILES
patching file Makefile
Hunk #2 succeeded at 713 (offset 8 lines).
Hunk #4 succeeded at 818 (offset 8 lines).
Hunk #5 succeeded at 1598 (offset 87 lines).
Hunk #6 succeeded at 1585 (offset 9 lines).
Hunk #7 succeeded at 1694 (offset 87 lines).
patching file TARGETS
Hunk #1 succeeded at 405 (offset 20 lines).
patching file hier.c
Hunk #1 succeeded at 115 with fuzz 1 (offset 7 lines).
patching file install-big.c
patching file qmail-send.c
Hunk #1 FAILED at 1215.
Hunk #2 succeeded at 1527 (offset 88 lines).
Hunk #3 succeeded at 1662 (offset 20 lines).
Hunk #4 succeeded at 1797 (offset 88 lines).
1 out of 4 hunks FAILED -- saving rejects to file qmail-send.c.rej
patching file qmail-start.c
patching file qmail-todo.c

Yes. I did not dare to include the ext-big-todo into SPAMCONTROL (yet).
It breaks the philosphy of Qmail.


It also might be possible that my disk speed be contributing a bit to the 
bottleneck. Current iostat figures are (not taken at the silly qmail 
syndrome time, I would take that figure to when I am hit again).

iostat -d -x /dev/hda2 2
Linux 2.4.18-18.7.x (slsp-da4p21)   09/07/2004

Device:rrqm/s wrqm/s   r/s   w/s  rsec/s  wsec/srkB/swkB/s 
avgrq-sz avgqu-sz   await  svctm  %util
/dev/hda20.03   2.27  1.85  0.37   14.98   21.73

[vchkpw] Silly Qmail (Queue) Syndrome and Spamcontrol Patch

2004-09-06 Thread Devendra Singh
Dear Erwin,
Sorry for question not really related to Vpopmail.
It seems that I am hit by Silly Qmail (Queue) Syndrome.
I am using the Spamcontrol Patch v2.2.12 along with vpopmail-5.4.6, but 
have not used the experimental bigtodo.

Wished to apply the bigtodo. I would like to get clarified that whether you 
bigtodo is based on ext_todo patch or big-todo patch or both. I had not 
initially compiled the bigtodo thinking that it is experimental.

What do you suggest.
Thanks.
Devendra Singh


Re: [vchkpw] Silly Qmail (Queue) Syndrome and Spamcontrol Patch

2004-09-06 Thread Erwin Hoffmann
Hi,

At 20:11 06.09.04 +0530, you wrote:
Dear Erwin,

Sorry for question not really related to Vpopmail.

It seems that I am hit by Silly Qmail (Queue) Syndrome.

I am using the Spamcontrol Patch v2.2.12 along with vpopmail-5.4.6, but 
have not used the experimental bigtodo.

Wished to apply the bigtodo. I would like to get clarified that whether you 
bigtodo is based on ext_todo patch or big-todo patch or both. I had not 
initially compiled the bigtodo thinking that it is experimental.

What do you suggest.

Well. At first you have to tell why you think you are hit by the Silly
Qmail Syndrom. Any hints ?

Second. Apart from the big-todo enhencement, my implementation of Andre
Oppermann's performance enhancements dont work well. After investigation a
look of time and testing I didn't find any significant performance
improvement.
Note: The code in SPAMCONTROL is not the ext-big-todo; however it is based
of Andre's first suggestion to influence qmail's scheduler for mail
processing; which was buggy by itself.

Third. The best thing is to avoid bounces to non-existing accounts. 
Use my RECIPIENTS extension as part of Qmail or perhaps the real-rcptto
patch.

The forthcoming SPAMCONTROL version will include verion 0.42 of the
RECIPIENTS extension; check my Qmail page (http://www.fehcom.de/qmail.html).

regards.
--eh.


Dr. Erwin Hoffmann | FEHCom | http://www.fehcom.de/
Wiener Weg 8, 50858 Cologne | T: +49 221 484 4923 | F: ...24


Re: [vchkpw] Silly Qmail (Queue) Syndrome and Spamcontrol Patch

2004-09-06 Thread Devendra Singh
At 06/09/04 22:15 (), Erwin Hoffmann wrote:
Hi,
At 20:11 06.09.04 +0530, you wrote:
Dear Erwin,

Sorry for question not really related to Vpopmail.

It seems that I am hit by Silly Qmail (Queue) Syndrome.

I am using the Spamcontrol Patch v2.2.12 along with vpopmail-5.4.6, but
have not used the experimental bigtodo.

Wished to apply the bigtodo. I would like to get clarified that whether you
bigtodo is based on ext_todo patch or big-todo patch or both. I had not
initially compiled the bigtodo thinking that it is experimental.

What do you suggest.
Well. At first you have to tell why you think you are hit by the Silly
Qmail Syndrom. Any hints ?
Second. Apart from the big-todo enhencement, my implementation of Andre
Oppermann's performance enhancements dont work well. After investigation a
look of time and testing I didn't find any significant performance
improvement.
Note: The code in SPAMCONTROL is not the ext-big-todo; however it is based
of Andre's first suggestion to influence qmail's scheduler for mail
processing; which was buggy by itself.
Third. The best thing is to avoid bounces to non-existing accounts.
Use my RECIPIENTS extension as part of Qmail or perhaps the real-rcptto
patch.
The forthcoming SPAMCONTROL version will include verion 0.42 of the
RECIPIENTS extension; check my Qmail page (http://www.fehcom.de/qmail.html).
regards.
--eh.
Hi Erwin,
Thanks for nice reply.
I am attaching Queue Size graph (5 Minute Average) updated Tuesday, 7 
September 2004 at 0:50 (EDT).

You can notice between 0400 - 1000 hrs (EDT) a quite high Mail Queue. 
During that time period the smtpd is running to the tune of 100/100. But 
the send is running to the tune of local 3/15 remote 5/40. The messages in 
queue but not yet preprocessed goes on increasing in wild. When the smtpd 
runs to the tune of 85/100 its all okay. This has started happening on 
almost every start of the week, when huge volume of genuine + virus 
infected customers mails start pouring in.

I am not using RECIPIENTS extension, but using badrcptto for 
whitelisting mechanism, which works very well (might be a bit slow due to 
the reason that lookup is being done into txt database).

I am also using 
http://linux.voyager.hr/ucspi-tcp/tcpserver-limits-2004-07-25.diff patch to 
limit concurrent connection from single IP. This helps identifying Virus 
trodden computers and denying them connection (it's a boon).

I also have Caching-DNS on this Server (djbdns).
About the todo patches the comments of Dave Sill (of Qmail Handbook fame) 
are interesting to note in the thread:

Outbound email rate slows when inbound rate is high
http://groups.google.com/groups?hl=enlr=ie=UTF-8c2coff=1threadm=e6c47de7.0310091325.147cade4%40posting.google.comrnum=2prev=/groups%3Fq%3Dext-todo%26hl%3Den%26lr%3D%26ie%3DUTF-8%26c2coff%3D1%26selm%3De6c47de7.0310091325.147cade4%2540posting.google.com%26rnum%3D2
Also one can have a look at the thread
ext-todo and big-todo patches
http://groups.google.com/groups?hl=enlr=ie=UTF-8c2coff=1threadm=wx0lm56pfo0.fsf%40sws5.ctd.ornl.govrnum=1prev=/groups%3Fhl%3Den%26lr%3D%26ie%3DUTF-8%26c2coff%3D1%26q%3Ddave%2Bsill%2Bext-todo%2Band%2Bbig-todo
I tried to apply the patch 
http://www.nrg4u.com/qmail/ext_todo-20030105.patch over and above 
spamcontrol but it failed at:

patch p1  ext_todo-20030105.patch
patching file p1
patching file EXTTODO-INFO
patching file FILES
patching file Makefile
Hunk #2 succeeded at 713 (offset 8 lines).
Hunk #4 succeeded at 818 (offset 8 lines).
Hunk #5 succeeded at 1598 (offset 87 lines).
Hunk #6 succeeded at 1585 (offset 9 lines).
Hunk #7 succeeded at 1694 (offset 87 lines).
patching file TARGETS
Hunk #1 succeeded at 405 (offset 20 lines).
patching file hier.c
Hunk #1 succeeded at 115 with fuzz 1 (offset 7 lines).
patching file install-big.c
patching file qmail-send.c
Hunk #1 FAILED at 1215.
Hunk #2 succeeded at 1527 (offset 88 lines).
Hunk #3 succeeded at 1662 (offset 20 lines).
Hunk #4 succeeded at 1797 (offset 88 lines).
1 out of 4 hunks FAILED -- saving rejects to file qmail-send.c.rej
patching file qmail-start.c
patching file qmail-todo.c
It also might be possible that my disk speed be contributing a bit to the 
bottleneck. Current iostat figures are (not taken at the silly qmail 
syndrome time, I would take that figure to when I am hit again).

iostat -d -x /dev/hda2 2
Linux 2.4.18-18.7.x (slsp-da4p21)   09/07/2004
Device:rrqm/s wrqm/s   r/s   w/s  rsec/s  wsec/srkB/swkB/s 
avgrq-sz avgqu-sz   await  svctm  %util
/dev/hda20.03   2.27  1.85  0.37   14.98   21.73 7.4910.86 
16.57 0.13  208.66 171.08   3.79

Device:rrqm/s wrqm/s   r/s   w/s  rsec/s  wsec/srkB/swkB/s 
avgrq-sz avgqu-sz   await  svctm  %util
/dev/hda20.00   0.00  2.00  0.00   16.000.00 8.00 0.00 
8.00 0.15   75.00  50.00   1.00

Device:rrqm/s wrqm/s   r/s   w/s  rsec/s  wsec/srkB/swkB/s 
avgrq-sz avgqu-sz   await  svctm  %util
/dev/hda20.00   0.00  0.00  0.000.00