[plug] spamd grinding to a halt

[Russ Powers]

Hi,

I'm having an odd problem with spamassassin on my mailserver.

I heard my server cpu clattering away in the corner. I tried to login
and everything was happenning really slowly as you'd expect with the cpu
running like that. It was so slow I finally just shut it down because I
couldn't do anything useful with it.

Checking the logs after I rebooted it seems that spamassassin just keeps
taking longer and longer to scan emails as they come in. For example:

Jun  9 15:12:26 bammbamm spamd[807]: clean message (2.5/5.0) for mail:8 in 47.5 seconds, 41949 bytes.
Jun  9 15:13:16 bammbamm spamd[834]: clean message (4.9/5.0) for mail:8 in 93.9 seconds, 1707 bytes.
Jun  9 15:13:19 bammbamm spamd[827]: identified spam (6.3/5.0) for mail:8 in 96.7 seconds, 2115 bytes.
Jun  9 15:13:24 bammbamm spamd[845]: clean message (0.1/5.0) for mail:8 in 97.3 seconds, 4389 bytes.
Jun  9 15:14:01 bammbamm spamd[853]: identified spam (5.8/5.0) for mail:8 in 122.4 seconds, 76576 bytes.
Jun  9 15:14:18 bammbamm spamd[819]: clean message (3.2/5.0) for mail:8 in 158.7 seconds, 42805 bytes.

Going back to right before I shut it down is even more interesting:

Jun  9 13:31:46 bammbamm spamd[17455]: clean message (0.2/5.0) for mail:8 in 1423.1 seconds, 2527 bytes.
Jun  9 13:31:49 bammbamm spamd[17458]: Cannot open bayes databases /var/mail/.spamassassin/bayes_* R/W: lock failed: File exists
Jun  9 13:31:49 bammbamm spamd[17459]: Cannot open bayes databases /var/mail/.spamassassin/bayes_* R/W: lock failed: File exists
Jun  9 13:31:49 bammbamm spamd[17461]: Cannot open bayes databases /var/mail/.spamassassin/bayes_* R/W: lock failed: File exists
Jun  9 13:31:56 bammbamm spamd[332]: server killed by SIGTERM, shutting down
Jun  9 13:33:26 bammbamm spamd[17459]: clean message (0.2/5.0) for mail:8 in 1396.9 seconds, 2908 bytes.
Jun  9 13:33:29 bammbamm spamd[17461]: clean message (0.0/5.0) for mail:8 in 1356.9 seconds, 2272 bytes.
Jun  9 13:33:35 bammbamm spamd[17453]: clean message (0.2/5.0) for mail:8 in 1605.8 seconds, 3720 bytes.
Jun  9 13:33:38 bammbamm spamd[17458]: clean message (0.2/5.0) for mail:8 in 1436.5 seconds, 4011 bytes.
Jun  9 13:33:42 bammbamm spamd[17458]: clean message (0.2/5.0) for mail:8 in 1436.5 seconds, 4011 bytes.
Jun  9 13:33:44 bammbamm spamd[17458]: SIGPIPE received - reopening log  socket Jun  9 13:34:00 bammbamm spamd[17470]: Cannot open bayes databases /var/mail/.spamassassin/bayes_* R/W: lock failed: File exists
Jun  9 13:34:01 bammbamm spamd[17471]: Cannot open bayes databases /var/mail/.spamassassin/bayes_* R/W: lock failed: File exists
Jun  9 13:34:09 bammbamm spamd[17469]: clean message (0.7/5.0) for mail:8 in 1178.8 seconds, 4294 bytes.
Jun  9 13:34:13 bammbamm spamd[17469]: clean message (0.7/5.0) for mail:8 in 1178.8 seconds, 4294 bytes.
Jun  9 13:34:14 bammbamm spamd[17469]: SIGPIPE received - reopening log socket Jun  9 13:34:45 bammbamm spamd[17471]: clean message (0.2/5.0) for  mail:8 in 1177.9 seconds, 2864 bytes.
Jun  9 13:35:21 bammbamm spamd[17470]: clean message (0.2/5.0) for mail:8 in 1210.5 seconds, 3050 bytes.
Jun  9 13:36:44 bammbamm spamd[17472]: clean message (0.2/5.0) for mail:8 in 1287.5 seconds, 2414 bytes.

I googled on the " /var/mail/.spamassassin/bayes_* R/W: lock failed" but
didn't find much and didn't really see anything similar to this. Any
thoughts/ideas/suggestions short of rebooting the server every ten emails
received.  ;)

The distro is libranet/debian and has the following mail related installs:

ii  exim           3.36-11        An MTA (Mail Transport Agent)
ii  exim-doc-html  3.20-1         Exim MTA html documentation
ii  courier-imap   3.0.3-1        Courier Mail Server - IMAP server
ii  courier-imap-s 3.0.3-1        Courier Mail Server - IMAP over SSL
ii  fetchmail      6.2.5-7        SSL enabled POP3, APOP, IMAP mail. gatherer/f 
ii  fetchmailconf  6.2.5-7        fetchmail configurator
ii  spamassassin   2.63-1         Perl-based spam filter using text analysis
ii  spamc          2.63-1         Client for perl-based spam filtering daemon


Thanks.
russ