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Spamfilter Svc. Spikes CPU

Printed From: LogSat Software
Category: Spam Filter ISP
Forum Name: Spam Filter ISP Support
Forum Description: General support for Spam Filter ISP
URL: https://www.logsat.com/spamfilter/forums/forum_posts.asp?TID=742
Printed Date: 05 February 2025 at 1:36am


Topic: Spamfilter Svc. Spikes CPU
Posted By: Guests
Subject: Spamfilter Svc. Spikes CPU
Date Posted: 01 June 2003 at 6:07pm
On (almost) regular intervals the Spamfilter service spikes the CPU to a 100%. Nothing appears to be running through the spam filter to cause this. The only thing I can think off is that the scheduled reload of black-listed information from files but in my case there are no more than 5 entries per file.

I am running the latest free version under NT.

Thanks.


Replies:
Posted By: Guests
Date Posted: 02 June 2003 at 11:51pm
Well...?

Posted By: LogSat
Date Posted: 03 June 2003 at 12:00am

We've just uploaded minutes ago a new beta build that has several improvements in how local lists are handled. It also features a new database-driven quarantine with end-user web access to it.

We hope to bring this build out of beta state very soon, if you could give it a test run it may have solved the issue you were having.

Roberto Franceschetti
LogSat Software

Posted By: Guests
Date Posted: 03 June 2003 at 2:09pm

We are also seeing extreme cpu spikes, they seem to occur on incoming connections that contain large file attachments.  This occured yesterday with a 35Mb attachment that was manually aborted at the client on the local network after about 5 to 10 minutes of 100% cpu usage.  It has also been occuring today with 3 to 4Mb incomming attachements, creating about 1 minute to 2 minute spike on a PIII/550 over a T1.   SpamFilter seems to handle additional incoming connection without a problem, but doesn't share the cpu usage with any other process that are running.  Any suggestions?

-Jeff

Posted By: LogSat
Date Posted: 03 June 2003 at 2:24pm

The size of the keyword file will impact performance. Can you please let us know what version of SpamFilter you are using and how large (if you're using one at all) your keyword file is?

Roberto Franceschetti
LogSat Software

Posted By: Guests
Date Posted: 03 June 2003 at 2:32pm

Hello, Thanks for the prompt reply.  Yesterday we were searching for 4 keywords in 3 phrases, thinking that may be a key part of spike I cleared out the keywords at that time and are still saw a few spikes today so far.  We are running version 1.1.2.124.

-Jeff

Posted By: Guests
Date Posted: 03 June 2003 at 2:48pm

How much memory do you have. I was running this version on a test server that was a Dual PPro200 with 256mb of ram and while it spiked on large multiple connections it never timed out.

I have since moved everything over to a Dual 1GB Xeon with 1.5 GB Memory and have not seen any spikes go over 60% (spikes only last a fraction of a second) and that is with 40+ connections with a 2,705 word count for a total of 17,959 characters. This server is also running IIS and Mcafee Net Shield along with ColdFusion Application server.

I would recommend more memory and more cpu power.

Posted By: Guests
Date Posted: 03 June 2003 at 4:14pm

We are running with 512Mb of RAM, typically we run around 150 to 200Mb's and only peak out at around 300Mb's.  Now that you mentioned Mcafee, it does shed light on a possible contributer to the spiking since we are also running Mcafee on-access scanning on the server.  A quick test with excluding the SpamFilter directory from being scanned for virus seems to have put the cpu spike at a much more expected level, a second or two per MB.  More observeration are in order of course.

Thanks,

-Jeff

 

Posted By: Guests
Date Posted: 06 June 2003 at 1:57pm
I have downloaded and installed the beta version. No improvements. The CPU still spikes like clockwork every minute or so and the most consuming task is Spamfiter svc.

Posted By: LogSat
Date Posted: 06 June 2003 at 2:30pm

For how long (milliseconds/seconds/minutes) does the SpamFilterSvc.exe process cause the CPU to stay at 100%?

How large are the sizes of your local black/white list files and keyword files?

Roberto Franceschetti
LogSat Software

Posted By: Guests
Date Posted: 06 June 2003 at 5:28pm
I haven't timed it but it appears to be 5 to 15 seconds (I'll gather more accurate metrics). I have 12 to e-mail addresses, 6 from e-mail addresses, 3 domains and no key words.

Posted By: LogSat
Date Posted: 09 June 2003 at 12:10am

We've uploaded  new beta that instead of running several task concurrently every minute (logfile saving, updating country stats, refreshing local black/white lists) spreads them apart (logfiles every minute, country stats every 2 minutes, local files refresh every 3 minutes). This should help us pinpoint the problem depending on when you are now seing the spikes.

Roberto Franceschetti
LogSat Software

Posted By: Guests
Date Posted: 18 June 2003 at 6:24pm
OK. I installed this version of the beta. Here are the results.

Every 1 minute spike to 90 % for a brief (1 sec) period. This is acceptable. Every two minutes spikes to a 100% for 15 seconds, this is bad. So it's loading the country stats that seems to be causing the problem. I am using the block by country feature.

Thanks.

Posted By: LogSat
Date Posted: 18 June 2003 at 11:25pm

We've seen cases where antivirus software (McAfee) would choke when scanning the SpamFilter/LogFiles directory. If you can try to exclude that directory from scanning you may get rid of the 1 minute spikes.

What is really odd are the spikes caused by refreshing the country stats. There's very little and fast calculations there, it should not bog down the server at all. The only thing we can think of is that our code does some calculations retrieving data from a graphic control rather than by storing data in memory (to save on RAM). This could in theory depend on the video card. It's a long shot, but we placed in memory this data now, so access times are faster. The new beta build 163 will be ready later tonite or tomorrow with this feature.

Roberto Franceschetti
LogSat Software

Posted By: Guests
Date Posted: 19 June 2003 at 9:23am
There is no virus checking software on this server. I'll look for your new beta build.

Incidently it would be nice to be able to turn off this automatic scanning and reloading after every 60 or 120 seconds. What would be nice is a feature that does a load whenever configuration is saved. And why is country information reloaded every 2 minutes or 1 minute?

Thanks.

Posted By: Guests
Date Posted: 19 June 2003 at 12:40pm
I installed the .163. Much better. When it spikes it's only for 500 ms. That I can live with.

Thanks.


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