Huge load average on mail server

[John Fox]

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
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| John Fox <jjf at mind.net>     |    System Administrator   | InfoStructure   |
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|  "The people and friends that we have lost, the dreams that have faded... |
|  never forget them."  -- Yuna, Final Fantasy X                            |
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