Very slow email (some 6 hours, one haven't seen after 18 hr)

[nick4mony]

Hi people,

Is there still an attack going on against the sg servers?

The web site is OK, but it took 6 hours for a test email to get through, and there's another message that's been outstanding for 18 hours.

The test email has decremented the count, but the outstanding mail has not.

Nick.

[SysKoll]

Yes, there is definitely something going on. This morning, I received emails sent yesterday.

I'll action tonight.

[lwc]

Why don't you just make this sticky instead of having new "mail is slow" topics being created every couple of days (which is kind of a spam in its own right)?

[nick4mony]

I agree, in part.

In fact, a few minutes after I posted the thread, I saw another thread entry a few stops down, also for slow email. Sorry ....

The only problem with a sticky is that it gets very long after a while.

I've got some additional suggestions, but I'll put them in a different forum, a little later.

[sim213]

Uh yeah, delays, one of mine just took 3 whole days. Any idea why?

Code: Select all

Received: from ccm00.constantcontact.com (ccm00.constantcontact.com [63.251.135.75])
   by gourmet.spamgourmet.com (8.13.8/8.13.7) with ESMTP id m1GAKd1r011801
   for <harvardbookstore.xxx@neverbox.com>; Sat, 16 Feb 2008 10:20:39 GMT
Received: from ccm08.constantcontact.com (unknown [10.250.0.102])
   by ccm00.constantcontact.com (Postfix) with ESMTP id AC3372DFAF02
   for <harvardbookstore.xxx@neverbox.com>; Wed, 13 Feb 2008 10:05:42 -0500 (EST)

[boomschtick]

I requested an email at the beginning of my work day and didn't get it until the END of my work day 8 hours later. Something needs to be done here. I don't want to have to go to gmail for this functionality, but I can't be waiting so long for messages to arrive.

[josh]

better now?

We had a bunch of stuff happen - Syskoll majorly reconfigured the system, and our ISP also did a bunch of router upgrades and re-configuring.

[gourmet]

Sorry! Not working properly yet... It seems that all SMTP slots would be tied up. So other SMTP servers are unable to connect gourmet.spamgourmet.com

How about adding additional smtp servers? I think we have been discussing this problem for several years.

Spamgourmet is simply the best solution out there! That's why I do care. I have done my donations.

Few lame ideas here. But I think you have already considered at least these two easy solutions.

http://bbs.spamgourmet.com/viewtopic.php?p=5296#5296

[josh]

I keep getting right in whenever I try to connect, but anyway, I asked our provider about going with several boxes.

Currently, the hosting service is $120/month (not counting domain registration renewals). Donations and ad revenue average about that (sometimes a little higher, sometimes a little lower), and that's *groovy*

Getting more boxes would raise the cost to about $800/month (plus an $800 setup fee) - this would be one database box (probably use the current box for that) two SMTP servers, and one web server (which could also probably do SMTP in a pinch) - the group would be connected via GigE. That would be awesome!

But the money's an issue. I think that's a pretty competitive price, too.

Maybe we could go colo - big change, though.

[gourmet]

Is there any way to improve current servers incoming smtp session handling? What's the current session limit?

The current session limit is pretty low. No exact figures, sorry, you never know who is reading.

As for enhancing the session handling, any good idea? Our SMTP time-out is rather low. Dead sessions are a problem. That is, some people initiate a session and start talking to us, then stop dead in the middle after a few packets. The SMTP time-out should take care of this. Any recommendation?

[gourmet]

Is there any way to improve current servers incoming smtp session handling? What's the current session limit?

The current session limit is pretty low. No exact figures, sorry, you never know who is reading.

As for enhancing the session handling, any good idea? Our SMTP time-out is rather low. Dead sessions are a problem. That is, some people initiate a session and start talking to us, then stop dead in the middle after a few packets. The SMTP time-out should take care of this. Any recommendation?

Uh oh? Who wrote that (gourmet quoted text) because I didn't write it.

My password is not guessable, so I guess it's admin who made it by mistake.

- Thanks

EDIT: This post was by me (SysKoll). Dunno why it got posted as written by gourmet.

[SysKoll]

It was me, SysKoll. How on Earth did it come under your ID? I think there is a race condition in the BBS program and we just triggered it somehow!

[gourmet]

I just encountered new one (to me). Which was truly brute force spamming.

Spammer bot connected smtp server directly and started scanning email addresses. By brute force! That's rude!

In Spamgourmet's case that's not very effective. But in some cases it is. Because many users prefer short addresses.

Bot went trough all addresses shorter than 6 chars.

[a-z][A-Z][0-9] that's funny.

So it seems that smtp server needs to be modified to block those attacks, there is no easy configuration options anymore. Like drop smtp session after thee invalid addresses has been encountered. Or something like that.

Is that reason why spamgourmet says:
<ksjdf@spamgourmet.com>: host gourmet.spamgourmet.com[216.75.35.164] said: 554
5.7.1 ERRINV: rejected - no such user or invalid syntax (in reply to RCPT
TO command)

Even I though that spamgourmet wouldn't bounce... Has that been changed lately?

[boomschtick]

Another message took 6 or 7 hours to get to me today (ixia.jaredl)

Way too long

I know you guys have an uphill battle every day fighting all the spammers. Just do the best you can!

Thanks!

[gourmet]

Way too long

When connections are full, process of email delivery starts to become "random event". Meaning that there is slight change that email gets trough immediately and there is also slight change that email doesn't get ever trough.

It's just like tossing dice. You got 10 throws. And when you get one, it's done. There is also change that you don't get one at all with those 10 throws.

It's NOT about simple FIFO queue causing the delay.


And that's why this situation is unbearable. IMHO