Possible send mail problem

[Toucan]

I'm having problems using mail on one server. Any mail that seems to be generated seems to just get stuck in the outgoing mail queue. Most are sent from a php script but some may not be. The messages reports look like this:

EB68F28D 444 Wed Mar 16 01:32:29 me@me.com
(connect to 127.0.0.1[127.0.0.1]:10024: Connection refused)
david@myother server.com


all other messages also seem to be connection refused

netstat -tap
Active Internet connections (servers and established)
Proto Recv-Q Send-Q Local Address Foreign Address State PID/Program name
tcp 0 0 localhost.localdo:10025 *:* LISTEN 3417/master
tcp 0 0 *:mysql *:* LISTEN 8190/mysqld
tcp 0 0 localhost.localdo:spamd *:* LISTEN 2730/spamd.pid
tcp 0 0 *:sunrpc *:* LISTEN 2292/portmap
tcp 0 0 *:ftp *:* LISTEN 14776/pure-ftpd (SE
tcp 0 0 badbison.badbiso:domain *:* LISTEN 1640/mydns
tcp 0 0 localhost.locald:domain *:* LISTEN 1640/mydns
tcp 0 0 *:munin *:* LISTEN 3568/munin-node
tcp 0 0 *:ssh *:* LISTEN 2502/sshd
tcp 0 0 *:smtp *:* LISTEN 3417/master
tcp 0 0 localhost.localdoma:671 *:* LISTEN 3463/famd
tcp 0 0 localhost.localdo:45931 localhost.locald:sunrpc TIME_WAIT -
tcp 0 0 localhost.localdo:39425 localhost.localdoma:671 TIME_WAIT -
tcp 0 0 badbison.badbison:39470 badbison.co.uk:mysql TIME_WAIT -
tcp 0 52 badbison.badbison.c:ssh 5acbb067.bb.sky.c:49447 ESTABLISHED 7097/0
tcp 0 0 badbison.badbison:36356 badbison.badbison:imap2 TIME_WAIT -
tcp6 0 0 [::]:imaps [::]:* LISTEN 3331/couriertcpd
tcp6 0 0 [::]op3s [::]:* LISTEN 3349/couriertcpd
tcp6 0 0 [::]op3 [::]:* LISTEN 3337/couriertcpd
tcp6 0 0 [::]:imap2 [::]:* LISTEN 3314/couriertcpd
tcp6 0 0 [::]:http-alt [::]:* LISTEN 13764/apache2
tcp6 0 0 [::]:www [::]:* LISTEN 13764/apache2
tcp6 0 0 [::]:tproxy [::]:* LISTEN 13764/apache2
tcp6 0 0 [::]:ftp [::]:* LISTEN 14776/pure-ftpd (SE
tcp6 0 0 localhost:domain [::]:* LISTEN 1640/mydns
tcp6 0 0 [::]:ssh [::]:* LISTEN 2502/sshd
tcp6 0 0 [::]:https [::]:* LISTEN 13764/apache2
tcp6 0 0 badbison.badbison.c:www 5acbb067.bb.sky.c:50248 TIME_WAIT -
tcp6 0 0 badbison.badbison.c:www 5acbb067.bb.sky.c:50252 FIN_WAIT2 -




uname -a
Linux badbison.badbison.com 2.6.26-2-amd64 #1 SMP Tue Jan 25 05:59:43 UTC 2011 x86_64 GNU/Linux

[till]

The amavisd service is not started. To fix that, start amavisd.

[Toucan]

Till, thank you for that.

starting the service and flushing the mail queue worked.

How did you know that was the issue? Was it just the lack of service for amavisd from the netstat command?

[till]

Originally Posted by Toucan

How did you know that was the issue? Was it just the lack of service for amavisd from the netstat command?

It was the error of the message in the mailqueue:

connect to 127.0.0.1[127.0.0.1]:10024: Connection refused

The normal email port is 25, but the error occured on port 10024, which is the port of the amavisd daemon.

[Toucan]

Thank you. A good learning problem solving exercise for me.

[Toucan]

Sadly I should have asked the question, why was amavisd offline to start with....

It is running now but mails are still getting caught in the queue with errors. When sending an email through roundcube, the server load went sky high and caused it to become completely unresponsive. The load went up beyond 50.

It's now down to:

uptime
 23:01:30 up 33 days, 21:28,  1 user,  load average: 0.59, 0.31, 0.45
uptime
 23:02:26 up 33 days, 21:29,  1 user,  load average: 0.23, 0.26, 0.43
uptime
 23:03:06 up 33 days, 21:29,  1 user,  load average: 0.12, 0.22, 0.41

The queue looks like this:

C05392E        1495 Wed Mar 16 22:18:26  david@bon.com
(host 127.0.0.1[127.0.0.1] said: 451 4.5.0 Error in processing, id=21674-01, parts_decode_ext FAILED: file(1) utility (/usr/bin/file) error: run_command (open pipe): Can't fork at /usr/lib/perl/5.10/IO/File.pm line 66. at /usr/sbin/amavisd-new line 2892. (in reply to end of DATA command))
                                         admin@goti.com

CC038208       1781 Wed Mar 16 22:45:40  david@baon.com
(host 127.0.0.1[127.0.0.1] said: 421 4.3.2 Service shutting down, closing channel (in reply to MAIL FROM command))
                                         admin@goti.com

430DE286        519 Wed Mar 16 22:22:31  me@mydom.com
(host 127.0.0.1[127.0.0.1] said: 451 4.5.0 Error in processing, id=21694-01, parts_decode_ext FAILED: file(1) utility (/usr/bin/file) error: run_command (open pipe): Can't fork at /usr/lib/perl/5.10/IO/File.pm line 66. at /usr/sbin/amavisd-new line 2892. (in reply to end of DATA command))
                                         me@mydom.com

37C3E30         548 Wed Mar 16 22:04:54  admin@gohosti.com
(host 127.0.0.1[127.0.0.1] said: 421 4.3.2 Service shutting down, closing channel (in reply to MAIL FROM command))
                                         david@baon.com

The free memory looks like this:

free
             total       used       free     shared    buffers     cached
Mem:        511312     494168      17144          0       1764      29508
-/+ buffers/cache:     462896      48416
Swap:       498004     497860        144

Is it possible a new mail gets dealt with either in or out amavis kicks in and can't handle it all?