DSL_Tech
28-10-2003, 07:26 PM
As many have noticed the email server is again processing emails.
The problem was caused by the server receiving over 500,000 emails from a number of virus infected computers.
The system administrators stopped the email send process and firewalled it off from the offending IP addresses, then began the processing of clearing the queue.
Due to the unprecedented size of the queue, the program generally used to flush unwanted emails from the queue could not cope, or at best would have taken many hours to complete the task.
The program was modified to handle the large queue more efficiently. Once completed we were able to reduce the queue from half a million to 50,000 in about half an hour.
This being done, the mail send process was restarted and legitimate stored emails began to be delivered.
Right now as I write this, another virus/spammer has been detected and has also been firewalled.
Based on the current queue size of 29,000 we expect it will take about 5 hours to clear the backlog from the server.
Please see the "New Sydney/Melbourne SMTP Server" thread for information specific to Sydney and Melbourne customers.
The problem was caused by the server receiving over 500,000 emails from a number of virus infected computers.
The system administrators stopped the email send process and firewalled it off from the offending IP addresses, then began the processing of clearing the queue.
Due to the unprecedented size of the queue, the program generally used to flush unwanted emails from the queue could not cope, or at best would have taken many hours to complete the task.
The program was modified to handle the large queue more efficiently. Once completed we were able to reduce the queue from half a million to 50,000 in about half an hour.
This being done, the mail send process was restarted and legitimate stored emails began to be delivered.
Right now as I write this, another virus/spammer has been detected and has also been firewalled.
Based on the current queue size of 29,000 we expect it will take about 5 hours to clear the backlog from the server.
Please see the "New Sydney/Melbourne SMTP Server" thread for information specific to Sydney and Melbourne customers.