Exim log connection count

[mickalo]

Hello,

what exactly does this mean in the exim_mainlog connection count = X ?? is there a limit to the amount of connections allowed? Is this setting controlled within the Exim configuration somewhere ?

How many "connection count" are allowed ??

Any info on this would be appreciated.

Mickalo

[serversphere]

Believe that's the pop3 per hour setting in WHM. Limits how often people can check their mail.

[chirpy]

Nothing to do with pop (that's courier in /var/log/maillog ), it's the number of SMTP connections concurrently active in exim for in/outgoing email. The default maximum is 100:

(from /etc/exim.conf):
smtp_accept_max = 100

[mickalo]

ok. I was wondering what that was all about in the log files. thx's for the info.

Mickalo

[ramprage]

Once Exim reaches 100 connections it will reach its hard limit and stop accepting new ones. If you have a ton of mail traffic you may want to consider increasing this.

[mickalo]

Once Exim reaches 100 connections it will reach its hard limit and stop accepting new ones. If you have a ton of mail traffic you may want to consider increasing this.

is this per IP connections or total connections ... this is what I'm not sure about. how does it keep a running tally on the total connections ??

Mickalo

[chirpy]

It's total connections. Any given connection can be receiving multiple emails from an originating SMTP server, and an originating SMTP server can also have multiple connections to your server.

[mickalo]

It's total connections. Any given connection can be receiving multiple emails from an originating SMTP server, and an originating SMTP server can also have multiple connections to your server.

Ok, so the total default max connections is 100 ... now if this is not adequate, too small amount, what sort of errors would occur or SMTP connection problems ??

Mickalo

[mickalo]

Thx's Chirpy, this is what I was looking for ... much appreciated.

Mickalo

[chirpy]

As ramprage said, the SMTP server would not accept additional connections. So the sender SMTP server would probably receive a 421 message, i.e. Service not available, try again later and would queue on the sender server in most cases.

Just to correct myself, the value is for incoming SMTP connections only (not outgoing).

Hitting the maximum value is usually very unlikely unless you're suffering a DOS attack against your SMTP port. In those cases, you can set another parameter (smtp_accept_max_per_host) which restricts it on a per host (IP) basis too.

More information in the manual here:
http://www.exim.org/exim-html-4.66/d...html#id2729013

[serversphere]

Nothing to do with pop (that's courier in /var/log/maillog ), it's the number of SMTP connections concurrently active in exim

Whoops! Wrong log. Thx Chirpy!