I have a windows server with SMTP set up to relay several
hundred domains to a single linux email server.  The
windows server receives around 2000 messages per hour -
but only delivers about 50 messages per hour.  The queue
keeps growing by close to 1500 messages per hour!  Its
been about 8 hours since the last reboot here are some
stats:

Messages Allocated: 17931
Messages Deleted: 5487
Messages enumerated: 654
Messages in the queue directory: 13123
Open message bodies: 1000
Inbound Connections total: 15513
Outbound Connections Total: 1871
Messages Received Total: 17365
Messages Sent Total: 4057

Has anybody seen the queue grow out of control like this?
Is 2000 messages per hour too much for for a 2.4GHz
machine with 512MB? Is there a way to give outbound mail
precedence over inbound mail?

[ Post a follow-up to this message ]

I've got a 2.4 GHz Xeon box that can deliver 14,000 messages in an hour
(well, that's the most that I've thrown at it, so it can possibly deliver
more).

There's questions you haven't answered:
a) what's your outbound bandwidth like? how does that compare to the size of
the mail you are trying to deliver?
b) what's DNS lookups like? are you having problems performing MX record
resolution?
c) is all this mail going to one particular remote domain? or lots of
different remote domains?

Cheers
Ken


"Joe" <jspadea@massbusiness.com> wrote in message
news:b00601c488d5$7def8fc0$a401280a@phx.gbl...
>I have a windows server with SMTP set up to relay several
> hundred domains to a single linux email server.  The
> windows server receives around 2000 messages per hour -
> but only delivers about 50 messages per hour.  The queue
> keeps growing by close to 1500 messages per hour!  Its
> been about 8 hours since the last reboot here are some
> stats:
>
> Messages Allocated: 17931
> Messages Deleted: 5487
> Messages enumerated: 654
> Messages in the queue directory: 13123
> Open message bodies: 1000
> Inbound Connections total: 15513
> Outbound Connections Total: 1871
> Messages Received Total: 17365
> Messages Sent Total: 4057
>
> Has anybody seen the queue grow out of control like this?
> Is 2000 messages per hour too much for for a 2.4GHz
> machine with 512MB? Is there a way to give outbound mail
> precedence over inbound mail?

[ Post a follow-up to this message ]

Hi Ken,

a)  There is outbound bandwidth to the internet still
available - and the bytes/sec is well below the 100Mbps of
the ethernet card.

b.) There are no DNS failures and the DNS Queries Total is
pretty close to the Messages in the Queue Directory.
However, the TCP/IP properties for the ethernet card point
to external DNS servers.  I did install the DNS server on
this machine - Should I change the TCP/IP properties so
that it points to the local DNS server since it might cut
down on response times?  I did notice last night when I
tried to look up a remote domain using one of the DNS
servers it timed out in 2 seconds - if this was the
problem, wouldn't the DNS failures performance counter
report it?

c.) I have entered about 400 domains that this server will
eventually accept mail for.  About 300 of them are set to
forward to 3 exchange servers and 100 are set to forward
to 100 different domains set up as virtual smtp servers
with their own IP's on a single server.  The 100 are
responsible for the current load of about 2000 messages
per hour.  The other 300 will add about 10000 more
messages per hour.

All of these mail and DNS servers are physically close to
each other - separated by a switch an a router at most.

Joe

>-----Original Message-----
>I've got a 2.4 GHz Xeon box that can deliver 14,000
messages in an hour
>(well, that's the most that I've thrown at it, so it can
possibly deliver
>more).
>
>There's questions you haven't answered:
>a) what's your outbound bandwidth like? how does that
compare to the size of
>the mail you are trying to deliver?
>b) what's DNS lookups like? are you having problems
performing MX record
>resolution?
>c) is all this mail going to one particular remote
domain? or lots of
>different remote domains?
>
>Cheers
>Ken
>
>
>"Joe" <jspadea@massbusiness.com> wrote in message
>news:b00601c488d5$7def8fc0$a401280a@phx.gbl... 
this?[vbcol=seagreen] 
>
>
>.
>

[ Post a follow-up to this message ]