Date: Fri, 25 Jan 2002 18:45:47 -0500 (EST) From: BCPL.NET SysAdmin To: BCPL.NET News Subject: BCPL.NET NEWS: Unplanned Mail Server Down Time ------------------------------- UNPLANNED MAIL SERVER DOWN TIME ------------------------------- Late in the afternoon of Friday, January 25, our mail server (MAIL.BCPL.NET) was bombarded with a massive amount of mail from a malfunctioning remote mail server that delivered the same group of messages to us over and over again. I've confirmed that it was a malfunction, not an intentional denial of service attack. The load of trying to process this huge mail queue slowed the mail system to a crawl. Adding to the slowdown, during that period a large number of customers were trying to send and receive e-mail, and new mail was arriving from other remote servers at a fast clip. The result was that anyone who tried to do anything with e-mail or in a UNIX shell account during that time period experienced serious performance problems. Working on the problem while all this was going on was like trying to sprint through a vat of molasses, so at 5:20 PM I shut down the mail system. That freed up enough processor time to let me troubleshoot and repair the damage. The mail system was back up and running normally by about 6:00 PM. You may notice one aftereffect of the cleanup process: duplicate messages in your mailboxes. In rebuilding damaged mailboxes I took a cautious approach, on the theory that you would rather have duplicate messages instead of lost messages. Sorry about the interruption in e-mail service. Enjoy your weekend! Chip -- BCPL.NET INTERNET SERVICES 320 York Road Towson, MD 21204-5179 U.S.A. CONTACTS: -------- Web Site: http://www.bcpl.net Administration & Policy: ispadmin@bcpl.net 410-887-6180 Sales, Renewals, Account Status: accounts@bcpl.net 410-887-4172 Technical Support (Help Desk): help@bcpl.net 410-887-3297 Usenet News Newsgroup Requests news-admin@bcpl.net 410-887-6180 E-Mail & Newsgroup Abuse Reports: abuse@bcpl.net 410-887-6180 Domain Name Service Issues: dnsadmin@bcpl.net 410-887-6180 FAX: 410-887-2091