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Puremessage for Linux - memory problem

dcshman

We have a server running Suse 9.3, on an Intel based server with 1GB ram and Puremessage 5.5. on it.

The last weeks, we have to reboot it almost every day as it runs out of memory..

Is there a way to minimise the memory used by pmx ?

:3175


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  • 0

    Hi,

    You do not have enough RAM to meet the min requirements set by sophos:

    http://www.sophos.com/products/enterprise/email/security-and-control/unix/sysreqs.html

    System requirements
    Platforms supported
    Linux
    FreeBSD
    Solaris
    Please visit the PureMessage software lifecycle page for details.
    Gateway/email platforms
    Sendmail (Provided by Sophos)
    Postfix (Provided by Sophos)
    Sun Java™ System Messaging Server via the milter interface or a connector for older versions
    Other Mail Transfer Agents: Supported via a relay configuration
    Memory
    Minimum: 2 GB
    Recommended: 4 GB
    Disk space
    500 MB

    RAM is cheap. Try and upgrade it to 4GB if at all possible.

    Erric

    :3180
  • 0

    ok, but..

    here

    http://www.sophos.com/products/enterprise/email/security-and-control/unix/

    there is this pdf

    http://www.sophos.com/sophos/docs/eng/factshts/sophos-pm-unix-dsna.pdf

    which states :

    Memory
    Minimum: 1 GB
    Recommended: 2 GB

    And of course there's the question, why the server didn't had this memory problem until recently... It's not a new installation..

    And in an old server, ram is NOT very cheap...

    :3192
  • 0

    Hi, my guess would be Sophos needs to update their PDF file to reflect what their site suggests. At one time, it may have been acceptable to have 1GB of RAM, however if my site was pretty busy, I wouldn't trust the vendor minimums. Even if the PDF it correct, you're still missing 1GB of RAM for what they recomend as an optimal performance.

    You said this is SuSE 9.3? I'm guessing this is the desktop/professional version? If that's the case then you have other things to worry about, for one it was released in 2005 so it's getting a bit long in the tooth. Two, Sophos stopped supporting SuSE 9.3 in 2008: http://www.sophos.com/support/lifecycle/puremessage.html

    If you are using the enterprise version of SuSE 9 then you have until Jan 2010, however Novell recomends a min of between 512MB and 3GB of RAM for this product and that's not even accounting for applications like pure message running on it.

    While amazing, unix/linux systems are not magic and you're already asking quite a bit from it to function within the memory constraints you have given it. Especially if you have other applications running on this server and it's a busy system.

    Do you keep track of the day to day memory/cpu usage and can you look at this history? Have you noticed a great increase in the amount of SMTP traffic, SPAM etc? Do you look at the system processes to see which one is actually consuming the RAM? How do you know it's the pure message components? Do your clients send a large amount of attachments that are being un-zipped and scanned? All of this takes resources and could be part of the reason why you're running out of memory.

    If everything has been fine until recently, what changes were made recently?

    RAM usually is cheap compared to buying a new system*. I realize everyone has different business limits but you have to ask your self: Is the time I am taking to trouble shoot this costing me more then getting new hardware or more RAM?

    Erric

    * I don't know much about your hardwared. You could be using a desktop system and at that point, it's possible that buying a new system would indeed be cheaper then getting RAM for your current one.

    :3204
  • 0

    it's an Intel based Server, on an Intel chassis SC5200, with a couple of old Xeon cpus (purchased in 2004).

    Anyway, we managed not to solve the problem, but to have a turnaround, by disabling on access scanning, and thus having an extra 100-150mb of ram available for the system .

    :3684
  • 0

    I'm glad you were able to come to some kind of solution.

    I checked out the specs on the main boards Intel recomends for that chassis and they all seem to be built for DD266 (PC2100) ECC

    Just an informal poll of google shows a 1GB DIMM of that kind of RAM is about $50.

    Erric

    :3701
  • 0

    Do you have SAV for Linux on your PureMessage for UNIX server?  This is generally not advised as the libraries can conflict.  If you are looking to squeeze your server for the most power, I would not advise running SAV for Linux on this system.

    Are you running Postfix or Sendmail?  If Sendmail, consider switching to Postfix.  Sendmail is hugely RAM dependent.

    Consider lowering your milter concurrency as well.  If you submit a pmx-milter status output, I can advise based on that.

    As recommended, as this is most likely an Enterprise mail system, seriously consider purchasing more RAM.

    Cheers,

    MarkJD.

    :4207
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