4.2 lost mail

[pedz at smu.UUCP]

Look in /usr/src/usr.lib/sendmail/src/conf.c (the first few
links may be different on your system) and there are two
define's called QueueLA and RefuseLA which are set to some "low"
constants (like 10 and 16).  These are used as trigger points.
When the system load average gets above these numbers then
messages are queued (in the case of the QueueLA constant) or
SMTP connections are refused (in the case of the RefuseLA
constant).  The problem you are experiencing is that when
messages are queued, they eventually just get lost.  The only
way I know of to fix this problem is to bump the QueueLA up to
some unreal number (like 1000).  It may be that the problem is
caused becuase the queueing option has not been compiled in or
it may be that the code is actually bad.  I do not know and I
have not had time to fully explore what is wrong.  I just know
that bumping up the constant cures the problem.

The reason I wrote this as a response is basically to get feed
back from the (implied) questions above.  Is there a better fix
to the problem?

Perry
convex!smu!pedz