[Linux-users] Exim Timeout.. Causing server to get way backed up!

[Bill Campbell]

On Tue, Aug 14, 2007, Andrew Rosolino wrote:
>
>Ok we have a serious problem.. there is over 9,000 messages in the mail queue
>and a lot of them are over 4 days old!! I dont understand why there is
>messages over 4days in it because we have it set up like so.
>
...
>Then we have another problem and I think this might be the issue.. we tried
>to process the 4 day ones and they almost all came back as this:
>
>Message 1IJYcA-0006Ng-Gy is not frozen
>delivering 1IJYcA-0006Ng-Gy
>Connecting to mail.x.cn [211.151.238.169]:25 ... failed: Connection timed
>out (timeout=5m)
>LOG: MAIN
>  mail.x.cn [211.151.238.169] Connection timed out
>LOG: MAIN
>  == daikai at x.cn R=lookuphost T=remote_smtp defer (110): Connection timed

My guess is that you have been hit by a large spam run resulting
in blowback to bogus Sender addresses.  Do you normally have a
lot of traffic to hosts in China?

Any reasonable MTA (Mail Transport Agent) will hold messages for
a period of time, often about 5 days, when there are connection
problems or soft errors ``400 series'' responses to SMTP commands.
This allows for temporary outages with minimal loss of mail.

Bill
--
INTERNET:   bill at celestial.com  Bill Campbell; Celestial Software LLC
URL: http://www.celestial.com/  PO Box 820; 6641 E. Mercer Way
FAX:            (206) 232-9186  Mercer Island, WA 98040-0820; (206) 236-1676

"If taxation without consent is not robbery, then any band of robbers
have only to declare themselves a government, and all their robberies
are legalized." -- Lysander Spooner, Letter to Grover Cleveland 1886