RE: I crashed the SMTP server on V3r7

[Neil Palmer <npalmer@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

For what it's worth, I know someone at a large University that is going
to abandon the AS/400 POP3/SMTP mail because of this very problem.  They
have had this problem for over a year and IBM have not been able to
solve it.



Neil Palmer                                AS/400~~~~~      
NxTrend Technology - Canada   ____________          ___  ~     
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> -----Original Message-----
> From: PaulMmn [SMTP:PaulMmn@ix.netcom.com]
> Sent: Monday, April 13, 1998 9:18 PM
> To:   MIDRANGE-L@midrange.com
> Subject:      Re: I crashed the SMTP server on V3r7
> 
> >Does anyone has the similar experience? I manage to crash the SMTP
> >server on the v3r7 and cause it to stop functioning such that no one
> is
> >able to send any mails via SMTP for that matter.
> >
> >Please advise if there is a patch to fix this loop hole?
> >
> >--
> >Ferdinand Tang
> 
> 
> I wouldn't have called it a crash, but we've had an ongoing
> intermittent
> problem with SMTP Mail.  We get a 'clog' in the outgoing mail stream.
> Incoming mail works fine, but outgoing mail won't.
> 
> Symptoms include complaints that mail won't send.  If you look in
> subsystem
> QSYSWRK, check the joblog for job QSMTPSRVR.  The first few entries
> include
> the number of jobs in the outgoing and incoming queues.  If the
> numbers
> aren't zero, you may have a clog, or the system may be slow.  Only way
> to
> tell is to ENDTCPSVR *SMTP, then re-start it.  If the numbers go down,
> your
> system is slow.  If they stay the same, you may have a clog.  Or the
> recipient of one or more messages is temporarily unavailable; the
> message
> may send later.
> 
> Even at those times when things seemed their worst, outgoing mail
> would
> trickle through, sometimes after -weeks.-  IBM maintains that a single
> 'faulty' message should have no effect on other messages.
> 
> We've found no cure.  The only work around is to ENDMSF and ENTCPSVR
> *SMTP.
> Set  the data area for SMTP to start and throw away the first mail
> item it
> finds (Yes, it's lost).  Start MSF and SMTP and examine the joblog.
> Repeat
> until the outgoing queue is empty.  Now restart both MSF and SMTP with
> the
> cold-start options (to flush things out totally).
> 
> After a cold start, SMTP behaves itself for a while (weeks, months).
> Then
> a clog may happen again.
> 
> IBM has taken dumps, logs, looked at the flight records, and poked
> around,
> but without any definite answers.  Going back a ways, one problem was
> that
> AOL had so many name servers, but IBM only checked the first 2.  If
> the
> name servers you were after on AOL were down, the mail wouldn't send.
> This
> has been fixed.
> 
> Looking at the flight recorders is just about the only way to decipher
> the
> problem; we just don't have the time to constantly monitor the files.
> 
> We're currently running fine (knock on wood).  However, we keep
> looking at
> the joblog to make sure we're not clogged up again.
> 
> --Paul E Musselman
> PaulMmn@ix.netcom.com
> 
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