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Grex > Helpers > #140: Grex System Problems - Spring 2005 | |
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| Author |
Message |
| 25 new of 457 responses total. |
cross
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response 175 of 457:
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May 2 11:53 UTC 2005 |
This response has been erased.
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steve
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response 176 of 457:
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May 2 12:04 UTC 2005 |
In terms of disk I/O, it is.
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gull
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response 177 of 457:
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May 2 13:42 UTC 2005 |
Spamassassin is a great program, and it'd be great if Grex could use it.
I'd suggest being very careful about implementing it, though, because
it can consume large amounts of CPU and memory. Here are my
suggestions, after playing with it for a while myself:
- Large messages should bypass Spamassassin. "Large" here meaning
anything over 100K or so. There messages are unlikely to be spam,
anyway, and scanning them takes far too long.
- Use spamd/spamc, don't call Spamassassin directly. Exim 4.50 and
later, or earlier versions with the Exiscan patch, can call spamd
directly from the DATA acl. I recommend this because it saves some
process overhead, and it allows a lot of flexibility.
- When you test it, monitor the CPU load carefully, and be ready to take
Spamassassin back out of the loop if you find it's consuming too many
resources.
- Running a caching nameserver can really speed up the Spamassassin
tests that rely on DNS-based blacklists. If there isn't already one on
the local LAN, you may want to run one.
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cross
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response 178 of 457:
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May 2 15:36 UTC 2005 |
This response has been erased.
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tod
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response 179 of 457:
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May 2 15:45 UTC 2005 |
re #163
Once I got over to Provide.net it became clear that the passwd file
was really messed up. Root's password wasn't what it should be, nor
were any others that I knew of. Booting Grex into single user mode
revealed an /etc/passwd file of about 1100 accounts, not the 24,000
that it should have had. Worse, the "master.passwd" main passwd file
and associated database (.db) files were messed up as well.
I hate to break it to you but it sounds like Grex was hacked. It'd be in
everyone's best interest to change their password and also any other passwords
they may have attempted to use here that match that of a login to a system
elsewhere. For more information on what I'm talking about, catch the article
on Arbornet in next months Fortune Magazine.
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keesan
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response 180 of 457:
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May 2 15:53 UTC 2005 |
I thought the messed-up passwd file was due to a bad hard disk.
Most of my mails over 100K contain .zip viruses. Is grex going to start
bouncing 100K or over mails again? Fine with me if it does.
I have not lost a single real mail due to X-RBL filtering. On the other hand,
spamassassin routinely dumps all the emails from the electric company. How
about first using X-RBL filter to reduce the load on spamassassin?
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tod
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response 181 of 457:
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May 2 16:00 UTC 2005 |
re #180
Every password cracker in existence relies on assumptions like that.
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gull
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response 182 of 457:
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May 2 16:18 UTC 2005 |
Re resp:180: Why not just write a procmail filter to drop 100K+
messages, if that's what you want?
I hope staff gets the kinks worked out of Grex's new system, soon. So
far, it looks like the old Sun was more reliable.
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naftee
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response 183 of 457:
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May 2 17:35 UTC 2005 |
i hope nobody hacked my account :(
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albaugh
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response 184 of 457:
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May 2 18:59 UTC 2005 |
> Alternative: stamp your little feet and declare yourself a "paying member"
> of grex, which, I understand, accepts contributions.
News flash: That won't help the situation ONE BIT. Despite whatever revenues
grex may take in - which can pay for hardware and utilities - its labor and
brain power comes only from human volunteers. If the system is not reliable -
and lately it has not been - then grex users are at the mercy of whatever time
volunteer staff may or may not have available to give to grex, and access to
the new facility.
I have seen the light: grex has been so reliable for so long that I have come
to rely on that. And that was unwise, and unfair. If I'm smart I will start
to wean myself off grex...
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nharmon
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response 185 of 457:
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May 2 19:14 UTC 2005 |
Or you can volunteer your time to help Grex get back up to being super
reliable.
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tod
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response 186 of 457:
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May 2 19:21 UTC 2005 |
And see if the STeve of Oz lets you.
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albaugh
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response 187 of 457:
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May 2 19:22 UTC 2005 |
Nope, I don't have the expertise necessary, nor the proximity to the location,
nor the inclination. If I want a reliable system, I should not be relying
on grex - that is the conclusion that all should recognize.
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tod
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response 188 of 457:
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May 2 19:23 UTC 2005 |
MOVE ON -Mary Remmers
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gull
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response 189 of 457:
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May 2 20:23 UTC 2005 |
And I'm sure many of us will remember being told to "move on," when it
comes time to renew our memberships...
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naftee
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response 190 of 457:
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May 2 21:20 UTC 2005 |
GreX should adopt a no-ID policy wrt memberships
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steve
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response 191 of 457:
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May 2 21:31 UTC 2005 |
I have no evidence that Grex was vandalized. Believe me, I looked
and I've not seen anything that indicates that. Based on previous
examples of vandalism on Grex and M-net and other such systems, a
rm -rf / is one of the more common things done to systems.
The Sun-4/670 was incredibly reliable. It's tough to match that,
but I think we can. I realize that the current system has had problems,
which combined with other stuff has made for long periods of downtime.
STeve of Oz, eh? Ok.
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steve
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response 192 of 457:
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May 2 21:38 UTC 2005 |
Changing one's password is never a bad idea. How often do people actually
change their passwords, I wonder.
Another reason I don't think Grex was vandalized was the fact that the
nulogfile that newuser writes data into was completely weird for many
accounts. Someone breaking in wouldn't do that.
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tod
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response 193 of 457:
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May 2 21:40 UTC 2005 |
re #191
I wasn't referring to "vandalism". Did you miss the bit about "cracking"?
A corrupt passwd file should prompt staff to request all users to change their
passwords ASAP, don't you think?
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steve
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response 194 of 457:
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May 2 21:43 UTC 2005 |
Cracking is vandalism.
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mary
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response 195 of 457:
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May 2 22:03 UTC 2005 |
Re: 188 & 189 You guys are such drama queens.
Grex is unreliable at the moment and probably will be for some time
to come. If you have important files here, make sure they are
backed up. If you need mail, I mean NEED mail, Grex should not be
your primary mail drop. Realize that, find reliable email
elsewhere, and stop acting like clients not getting their expected
service. We aren't into service. We're into community. Don't
donate based on services you expect to receive. That's expecting
more than we're prepared to give. We are run by volunteers who are
pretty thinly spread at the moment. And we can't beat them into
giving more of their time. So it's up to the users to back off and
be as supportive and patient as they can. Not into that? Then you
really should move on. Grex isn't going to work for you.
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jor
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response 196 of 457:
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May 2 22:19 UTC 2005 |
But what if the "paying members"
stamp their little feet?
Just teasin' ya.
tod has motivated me to change passwords.
man I wish I could lern to be one o'them thar Drama Queens
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tod
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response 197 of 457:
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May 2 22:23 UTC 2005 |
re #195
Re: 188 & 189 You guys are such drama queens.
I prefer "prima attore" if you don't mind! 8P
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naftee
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response 198 of 457:
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May 2 22:43 UTC 2005 |
i changed my passwd. thanks, tod !
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janc
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response 199 of 457:
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May 2 23:00 UTC 2005 |
I'm not that sure that we need a bigger mail partition. The one time I
saw it fill up, it was due to a single user's mail file that grew way,
way big. When I deleted that file, mail was only like 46% full. I
probably should have studied the file before deleting it, because
theoretically no mail file should ever be able to grow that big. The
mailbox quota software I wrote should prevent it. But evidentally there
is a weakness in that somewhere.
If we got a bigger mail partition, but didn't fix this bug, then I
presume it would still fill up. If we do fix the bug, maybe we don't
need a bigger mail partition.
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