Huge load average on mail server

[Kevin Kinsey, DaleCo, S.P.]

From: "John Fox" <jjf at mind.net>
To: <freebsd-questions at freebsd.org>
Sent: Wednesday, July 23, 2003 4:37 PM
Subject: Huge load average on mail server


> I recently became responsible for our mail server, and lately, the
load
> average on the thing has been running consistently high, in
mid-20's to
> mid-30's.  And at the same time, sendmail has become extremely
sluggish
> in terms of responding to connections on port 25.
>
> There's got to be a bottleneck somewhere, but my experience leaves
me
> ill-equipped to seek it out.
>
> What procedures would folks recommend for me to follow in order to
try and
> determine the problem?
>
> Thank you,
>
> john

In addition to other thoughts on this thread, if it IS
the MTA:  Examine queues; attempt to find patterns in logs,
check DNS speed/configuration, check disks, memory, etc.

KDK