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SMTP Virtual Server causing massive ping times...

After four years of this sbs2003 server having no problems we started getting really slow internet yesterday. throuhg a lot of trial and error I have narrowed the issue down to the smtp virtual server service on our sbs 2003 machine. With the service running pings to google have a time of around 4000, turn the service off and it goes back to a healthy 20.

The server has anti-virus, anti-spam and anti-malware software running on it, I have run all the scans and they come up clean. Can anyone give me a clue why this is happening and what I should do to solve it?

PS the problem still occurs if the server is the only think attached to the router, so I'm assuiming the issue is on the server, not any client machines.

Cheers.

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wantabe2

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rebooted the server and the nic drives are the most up to date. Don't think it is a network issue, more like a smtp issue or malware (although server appears clean).

wantabe2

maybe there's a huge email hung..maybe a user sent an email with a huge attachment.

kevinhsieh

Check the mail queues. It is also possible someone has discovered a username and password and is using your server as a relay as an authenticated user.

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kevinhsieh: That was my thinking, so, I checked the queues and they where empty (but then there wouldn't be anything there emails where sending properly), and I also too the tick out of any authenicated user and just allowed relaying from the server and it still happened :(

any more ideas?

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I have just created a new virtual smtp server with the exact same problems as the original, stopped the original, started the new one and the problem goes away, what the hell is going on!

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kevinhsieh

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Well I've spent hours on this, network sniffing, taking everything off the network except the server, checking the mail queues etc and still got no where so I guess I will just stick with the temp smtp virtual server I set up. Thanks for your help.

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Not solved.