Question

Qmail is delivering multiple copies of messages

Asked by: shambright

My setup is has Qmail accepting mail and processing it with SpamAssassin and clamd all on one server. For the last few weeks, multiple copies of messages are collected when using POP.

I am not sure where the settings files are to raise timeouts, so any hints as to where to look would be great.

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Asked On
2009-11-04 at 08:16:56ID24871350
Topics

Message Queue

,

Email Software

,

Qmail Email Server

Participating Experts
2
Points
500
Comments
6

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Answers

 

by: it4sohoPosted on 2009-11-04 at 10:33:41ID: 25742327

QMail has default settings for the following timeouts, or they can be set in the following files:

filename in /var/qmail/control         Default       Use
=====================       =====       ====
timeoutconnect                                 60            qmail-remote timeout for remote system to answer on port 25
timeoutremote                                 1200         qmail-remote timeout for remote system to complete transfer
timeoutsmtp                                    1200          qmail-smtp timeout for receiving message to complete transaction


On *my* QMail server, I have the timeoutremote and timeoutsmtp values upped to 4800

Upping your values for timeoutremote and timeoutsmtp should do the trick...

Dan
IT4SOHO

 

by: shambrightPosted on 2009-11-05 at 13:29:00ID: 25754241

My /var/qmail/control directory had no entries for timeoutconnect or timeoutremote -- so I added them.

Increasing the two marked '1200'  to 3600 seemed to help some, as I was not overwhelmed with nearly EVERY email being duplicated, so I will try raising it to 4800 and see if that does not help even more.

The larger question is, why did this just start happening? If it is having problems with timeouts, is there a larger problem?

 

by: it4sohoPosted on 2009-11-05 at 14:42:43ID: 25754919

You may be having a bandwidth problem.... these timeouts are suggesting that it is taking more than an HOUR to transfer the e-mail message to the remote server (the timeout is in seconds)... either the messages are big, or your network connection is far too slow.

Good Luck!

Dan
IT4SOHO

 

by: Syngin9Posted on 2009-11-06 at 06:26:10ID: 25759327

I seem to recall someone saying that duplicates can arise if Spamassassin or the AV program don't finish their scan in x number of seconds...

What scanning programs are you running?

 

by: shambrightPosted on 2009-11-07 at 07:21:11ID: 25766566

We are running SpamAssassin and clamd.
There is no remote server. Scanning/processing/delivery is all happening on one box.

My thought is that there is just too much junk coming into it.

Except for an occasional, the duplicates seemed to have stopped.

 

by: it4sohoPosted on 2009-11-10 at 10:00:28ID: 25787947

References to a remote server are to the "sender" or "recipient" server when mail is being delivered from/to a different domain.

20120131-EE-VQP-002

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