Question on Clamscan and SpamAssassin

[AZMel]

Is it normal for a system to run like this?

Tasks: 238 total,  30 running, 201 sleeping,   0 stopped,   7 zombie
Cpu(s): 97.3% us,  2.7% sy,  0.0% ni,  0.0% id,  0.0% wa,  0.0% hi,  0.0% si
Mem:   2053692k total,  1352876k used,   700816k free,    99640k buffers
Swap:  3903784k total,    13448k used,  3890336k free,   230188k cached

  PID USER      PR  NI  VIRT  RES  SHR S %CPU %MEM    TIME+  COMMAND
13542 asmith    20   0 56352  26m 2212 R  6.6  1.3   0:00.50 spamassassin
13494 breily    20   0 56352  26m 2212 R  5.0  1.3   0:00.50 spamassassin
13568 ccowan    25   0  7964 1416  712 R  4.3  0.1   0:00.26 clamscan
13450 tlawrenc  19   0 31172  24m  724 R  3.7  1.2   0:01.34 clamscan
13443 rray      19   0 31048  23m  724 R  3.3  1.2   0:01.34 clamscan
13468 dbodine   20   0 56352  26m 2212 R  3.3  1.3   0:00.49 spamassassin
13472 tstover   20   0 56352  26m 2212 R  3.3  1.3   0:00.50 spamassassin
13478 dbodine   20   0 56344  26m 2212 R  3.3  1.3   0:00.49 spamassassin
13482 mirizarr  20   0 56344  26m 2212 R  3.3  1.3   0:00.51 spamassassin
13498 jmartine  20   0 56352  26m 2212 R  3.3  1.3   0:00.49 spamassassin
13502 asmith    20   0 56352  26m 2212 R  3.3  1.3   0:00.50 spamassassin
13506 ecarpent  20   0 56344  26m 2212 R  3.3  1.3   0:00.49 spamassassin
13510 jmartine  20   0 56580  27m 2212 R  3.3  1.4   0:00.49 spamassassin
13514 breily    20   0 56344  26m 2212 R  3.3  1.3   0:00.51 spamassassin
13518 tlawrenc  20   0 56340  26m 2212 R  3.3  1.3   0:00.51 spamassassin
13522 postmast  21   0 56340  26m 2212 R  3.3  1.3   0:00.50 spamassassin
13526 borman    20   0 56344  26m 2212 R  3.3  1.3   0:00.49 spamassassin
13530 rray      20   0 56352  26m 2212 R  3.3  1.3   0:00.49 spamassassin
13534 donpope   20   0 56352  26m 2212 R  3.3  1.3   0:00.52 spamassassin
13538 ccowan    20   0 56340  26m 2212 R  3.3  1.3   0:00.50 spamassassin
13546 office    20   0 56344  26m 2212 R  3.3  1.3   0:00.51 spamassassin
13550 borman    20   0 56352  26m 2212 R  3.3  1.3   0:00.52 spamassassin
13554 donpope   20   0 56348  26m 2212 R  3.3  1.3   0:00.50 spamassassin
13569 postmast  19   0  7968 1416  712 R  3.3  0.1   0:00.39 clamscan
13359 tstover   19   0 32756  25m  804 R  3.0  1.3   0:01.53 clamscan
13365 ecarpent  19   0 32756  25m  804 R  3.0  1.3   0:01.53 clamscan
13419 mirizarr  19   0 31304  24m  724 R  3.0  1.2   0:01.33 clamscan
13583 office    20   0 23256 8700 1692 R  3.0  0.4   0:00.09 spamassassin
 9803 root      16   0 28400 2420 1864 R  0.3  0.1   0:00.43 sshd
29726 root      16   0 10784 1508  940 R  0.3  0.1   0:05.68 top
    1 root      16   0  2632  560  476 S  0.0  0.0   0:00.59 init
    2 root      34  19     0    0    0 S  0.0  0.0   0:00.00 ksoftirqd/0
    3 root      10  -5     0    0    0 S  0.0  0.0   0:00.07 events/0
    4 root      10  -5     0    0    0 S  0.0  0.0   0:00.01 khelper
    5 root      10  -5     0    0    0 S  0.0  0.0   0:00.00 kthread
    7 root      20  -5     0    0    0 S  0.0  0.0   0:00.00 kacpid
   84 root      10  -5     0    0    0 S  0.0  0.0   0:00.10 kblockd/0
   87 root      15   0     0    0    0 S  0.0  0.0   0:00.00 khubd
  122 root      20  -5     0    0    0 S  0.0  0.0   0:00.00 aio/0
  121 root      15   0     0    0    0 S  0.0  0.0   0:00.21 kswapd0
  707 root      15   0     0    0    0 S  0.0  0.0   0:00.01 kseriod
 2932 root      10  -5     0    0    0 S  0.0  0.0   0:01.04 reiserfs/0
 3109 root      16  -4  4784  600  492 S  0.0  0.0   0:00.13 udevd
 4843 root      25   0     0    0    0 S  0.0  0.0   0:00.00 shpchpd_event

In trying to debug a bad update I noticed my system running slower than normal and e-mail taking more than 20 minutes to arrive. I am running on dual AMD64's with 2GB of ram. Let me know your thoughts.

Thanks,
Mel

[martinfst]

Don't have a solution, but doesn't look too good. You need more horse power for the spamassassin processes, but you don't have it. In the mean time more mails are arriving, requesting for even more cpu resources.

Maybe stop the MTA (Postfix ?) temporary until all mail is scanned to fix this immediate problem? The fact that the MTA is not available should not lead to missing emails, as normal servers wild do retry's (up till 3-5 days). More permanent investigation should probably be done.

[AZMel]

Yes, the system was being bogged down by all the clamscan and spamassassin that was held up in the queue. It took about an hour to clear up after fixing my botched upgrade.

Now the top looks like this:

Tasks:  96 total,   1 running,  95 sleeping,   0 stopped,   0 zombie
Cpu(s):  0.0% us,  0.0% sy,  0.0% ni, 100.0% id,  0.0% wa,  0.0% hi,  0.0% si
Mem:   2053692k total,  1164096k used,   889596k free,   104548k buffers
Swap:  3903784k total,    13448k used,  3890336k free,   175404k cached

  PID USER      PR  NI  VIRT  RES  SHR S %CPU %MEM    TIME+  COMMAND
    1 root      16   0  2632  560  476 S  0.0  0.0   0:00.61 init
    2 root      34  19     0    0    0 S  0.0  0.0   0:00.00 ksoftirqd/0
    3 root      10  -5     0    0    0 S  0.0  0.0   0:00.07 events/0
    4 root      10  -5     0    0    0 S  0.0  0.0   0:00.01 khelper
    5 root      10  -5     0    0    0 S  0.0  0.0   0:00.00 kthread
    7 root      20  -5     0    0    0 S  0.0  0.0   0:00.00 kacpid
   84 root      10  -5     0    0    0 S  0.0  0.0   0:00.10 kblockd/0
   87 root      15   0     0    0    0 S  0.0  0.0   0:00.00 khubd
  122 root      20  -5     0    0    0 S  0.0  0.0   0:00.00 aio/0
  121 root      15   0     0    0    0 S  0.0  0.0   0:00.21 kswapd0
  707 root      15   0     0    0    0 S  0.0  0.0   0:00.01 kseriod
 2932 root      10  -5     0    0    0 S  0.0  0.0   0:01.15 reiserfs/0
 3109 root      16  -4  4784  600  492 S  0.0  0.0   0:00.13 udevd
 4843 root      25   0     0    0    0 S  0.0  0.0   0:00.00 shpchpd_event
 6317 root      16   0  3288 1292  556 S  0.0  0.1   0:00.00 acpid
 6332 syslog    16   0  7080  776  612 S  0.0  0.0   0:02.58 syslogd
 6349 root      17   0  2628  428  348 S  0.0  0.0   0:00.01 dd
 6351 klog      16   0  4088 1996  476 S  0.0  0.1   0:00.05 klogd
 6364 messageb  16   0  8412 1108  932 S  0.0  0.1   0:00.00 dbus-daemon
 6377 hal       16   0 17040 3956 1664 S  0.0  0.2   0:00.23 hald
 6382 hal       18   0  6040  656  544 S  0.0  0.0   0:00.00 hald-addon-acpi
 6390 hal       17   0  6044  688  572 S  0.0  0.0   0:00.65 hald-addon-stor
 6437 root      17   0  3852  524  428 S  0.0  0.0   0:00.00 courierlogger

Thanks for the help!

Mel

[martinfst]

That's MUCHHHH better.