URGENT: cPanel email issue

[Andre Montaut]

I keep getting the following message every few minutes. I woke up this morning and had over 100 of these in my inbox.

spamd failed @ Fri Apr 22 14:33:24 2011. A restart was attempted automagically.
Service Check Method:  [check command] 

Cmd Service Check Raw Output: Spamd is not running Raw Output:

Any idea what I can do to stop this. I'm not a server savvy so the easier you can explain it the better.

[LinuxTechie]

Hello,

It seems your spamd is not running in the server. Can you make sure it is running in the server. You can start the service using the command /scripts/restartsrv_spamd from SSH.

If any errors post it here.

[lijeeshsd]

Hello,

Another possibility is that spamd is broken. Update cpanel software with /scripts/upcp --force from root SSH. Also, it would be better to set automatic updates from STABLE builds.

[Andre Montaut]

Ive done the /scripts/upcp --force and /scripts/restartsrv_spamd but im still getting the emails.

[lijeeshsd]

Is it a VPS? Often this problem happens in VPSs when some resources (mainly memory and buffers) exhaust.

[Andre Montaut]

yes it is. Is there a way to disable monitoring this? Should I try and do something due to the fact that this email is coming every 5 minutes?

[lijeeshsd]

Hello,

SpamAssassin service (spamd) service is failing due to some reason. When cpanel monitoring service finds spamd down, it restarts spamd and then send you alert email. But spamd is failing too often and so you get a lot of alerts. You can disable monitoring of spamd service, then spamd may have prolonged down time as there is no monitoring.

It would be better to check with your hosting support if VPS is running out of resources. If it is an OpenVZ vps you can check the file /proc/user_beancounters yourself. Check if there is any non-zero failcount values. Failcount represents the number of times corresponding resource ran out.

[Andre Montaut]

I did an update on spamassassin and this is what I just got:

This module is required by cPanel, and the system may not function correctly until it is installed, and functional.  Below is the results of the auto-install attempt:

Test Run
==============
Can't locate Mail/SpamAssassin.pm in @INC (@INC contains: /usr/local/lib/perl5/5.8.8/i686-linux /usr/local/lib/perl5/5.8.8 /usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/5.8.8/i686-linux /usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/5.8.8 /usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl .) at - line 1.
BEGIN failed--compilation aborted at - line 1.


Installer Run
==============
Testing connection speed...(using fast method)...Done
Ping:1 (ticks) Testing connection speed to mirrors.24-7-solutions.net using pureperl...(29250.00 bytes/s)...Done
Ping:1 (ticks) Testing connection speed to mirror.cogentco.com using pureperl...(20200.00 bytes/s)...Done
Ping:1 (ticks) Testing connection speed to mirrors.zerg.biz using pureperl...(19966.67 bytes/s)...Done Three usable mirrors located Mirror Check passed for mirrors.24-7-solutions.net (/index.html) Disabling /bin/wget since LWP is available at /usr/local/cpanel/Cpanel/cPCPAN/Config.pm line 82.
Disabling /bin/ftp since Net::FTP is available at /usr/local/cpanel/Cpanel/cPCPAN/Config.pm line 87.
commit: wrote '/usr/local/lib/perl5/5.8.8/CPAN/Config.pm'
Going to read '/home/.cpan/Metadata'
  Database was generated on Sat, 23 Apr 2011 14:30:19 GMT
cPCPAN: Module (Mail::SpamAssassin) holdback (3.003001 held back to 3.3.1)
open3: fork failed: Cannot allocate memory at /usr/local/cpanel/Cpanel/cPCPAN/Utils.pm line 146

[Andre Montaut]

I also noticed that Spamd is not in the list under Service Manager for monitoring. All i have:

Enabled 	  	TailWatch Drivers:
	  	Antirelayd
	  	ChkServd
	  	Eximstats
	  	cPBandwd

Uncheck a service to disable it
Enabled 	Monitor 	Service Information
		cpdavd

    cPanel DAV Daemon 

		entropychat

    cPanel's HTML Based Chat Server 

		exim

    SMTP Server 

		exim on another port

    Allow exim to listen on port
    Useful for providers that block port 25. 

		ftpd

    Ftp Server 

		httpd

    Web Server 

		imap

    Dovecot IMAP Server 

		ipaliases

		mailman

    Mailing List Manager 

		melange

    Java Chat Server 

		mysql

    MySQL Database Server 

		named

    Berkely Name Server Daemon (BIND) 

		sshd

    Secure Shell Daemon 

		syslogd

    System Logger Daemon

[Andre Montaut]

I have disabled spamassassin till I can fix this error. Is there a way to enable SPAMD through SSH as it shows its not running.

[lijeeshsd]

See this line in the update log "open3: fork failed: Cannot allocate memory at /usr/local/cpanel/Cpanel/cPCPAN/Utils.pm line 146". This error happens due to insufficient memory. You may have to upgrade VPS memory.

[Andre Montaut]

what can i do to see whats taking up all the memory?

[Andre Montaut]

I just ran top -c. Anything stand out here? I'm not really a server person so I'm not sure what here is using up all the memory.

top - 11:35:10 up 19:55,  1 user,  load average: 0.00, 0.01, 0.00
Tasks:  58 total,   1 running,  57 sleeping,   0 stopped,   0 zombie
Cpu(s):  0.0%us,  0.0%sy,  0.0%ni,100.0%id,  0.0%wa,  0.0%hi,  0.0%si,  0.0%st
Mem:    512000k total,   347236k used,   164764k free,        0k buffers
Swap:        0k total,        0k used,        0k free,        0k cached

  PID USER      PR  NI  VIRT  RES  SHR S %CPU %MEM    TIME+  COMMAND
    1 root      18   0  2152  664  572 S  0.0  0.1   0:01.33 init [3]
 3476 root      15   0  7972 5256 1796 S  0.0  1.0   0:00.09 /usr/bin/perl /usr/local/cp
 3485 root      15   0 12424 3280  136 S  0.0  0.6   0:00.00 /usr/local/apache/bin/httpd
 3487 nobody    16   0 12844 4884 1400 S  0.0  1.0   0:00.22 /usr/local/apache/bin/httpd
 3833 centreho  15   0  3256 1712 1236 S  0.0  0.3   0:00.13 imap
 4084 centreho  15   0  3216 1688 1212 S  0.0  0.3   0:00.14 imap
 5290 nobody    18   0 12708 4804 1332 S  0.0  0.9   0:00.27 /usr/local/apache/bin/httpd
 5512 centreho  15   0  3128 1444 1152 S  0.0  0.3   0:00.13 imap
 6085 root      15   0  6064 4284 1320 S  0.0  0.8   0:00.03 queueprocd - wait to proces
 6093 root      18   0  7812 5088 1712 S  0.0  1.0   0:00.18 tailwatchd
 6096 mailman   19   0 10384 4360  772 S  0.0  0.9   0:00.00 /usr/local/cpanel/3rdparty/
 6102 root      18   0  4112 2160 1076 S  0.0  0.4   0:00.00 cPhulkd - processor
 6112 mailman   18   0 10320 6036 2456 S  0.0  1.2   0:00.19 /usr/local/cpanel/3rdparty/
 6113 mailman   18   0 10372 6048 2456 S  0.0  1.2   0:00.19 /usr/local/cpanel/3rdparty/
 6114 mailman   18   0 10372 6048 2456 S  0.0  1.2   0:00.19 /usr/local/cpanel/3rdparty/
 6115 mailman   18   0 10320 6044 2456 S  0.0  1.2   0:00.18 /usr/local/cpanel/3rdparty/
 6116 mailman   18   0 10416 6084 2456 S  0.0  1.2   0:00.20 /usr/local/cpanel/3rdparty/
 6117 mailman   18   0 10452 6124 2456 S  0.0  1.2   0:00.17 /usr/local/cpanel/3rdparty/
 6120 mailman   18   0 10368 6044 2456 S  0.0  1.2   0:00.19 /usr/local/cpanel/3rdparty/
 6121 mailman

[lijeeshsd]

To know what is eating up memory, server needs to be continuously monitored for some time. If your VPS is fully managed (like SubHosting.net do) by your web host, then they can do this monitoring and analysis for you.

If you do not use mailman mailing lists, disable mailman service. Also, if there are only a few domains hosted in your VPS, change DNS service to NSD which takes less memory compared to Bind. There are Apache/PHP/MySQL tweaks to reduce memory usage. I hope your web host should be able to provide this support.

[Andre Montaut]

I turned of Mailman Mailing Lists. How do I go about changing the DNS service to NSD? My web hosts are pricks and wont help me out. They just say its up to me to figure it out.

The hosting company your with how many emails come with the VPS packages? I didn't see it in the list.

The way my company is setup, we have over 100 subdomains (1 per agent we hire) and each agent has their own email address. This number is constantly growing and could possibly hit 1k in the future. I need to make sure I get a good hosting company, one that can manage the server due to the fact I have no clue how to manage them myself. Also can they migrate emails if I do decide to switch over?