SA 2.63 / 2.44 performance problems

[not disclosed <n0...@hotmail.com>]

Dear SA,

I recently changed from SA 2.44 to 2.63 and found that SA became really 
slow, ta
king 15-30s or more on average per email while consuming 100%CPU on a fast 
linux
PC with a fast internet connection.
This is way slower than 2.44 and a considerable pain in the arse when you 
have a
constant stream of spam to filter.

Is there something wrong with this? or should I expect SA to be so slow?  In 
the
meantime I have reverted to 2.44. I have only used the defaults supplied 
with the RPMs.



kernel 2.4.20-30.9 /  Athlon(tm) XP 2600+ / calling spamc from kmail 1.5

Thanks SA

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Re: SA 2.63 / 2.44 performance problems

[Nick Leverton <nj...@leverton.org>]

On Tue, May 25, 2004 at 09:04:36AM +0000, not disclosed wrote:
> Dear SA,
> 
> I recently changed from SA 2.44 to 2.63 and found that SA became really 
> slow, ta
> king 15-30s or more on average per email while consuming 100%CPU on a fast 
> linux
> PC with a fast internet connection.
> This is way slower than 2.44 and a considerable pain in the arse when you 
> have a
> constant stream of spam to filter.

Did 2.44 have Bayes (I don't remember), and were you using it ?
There is a known issue on upgrading to 2.6x, in that your Bayes database
gets converted to the new format, and all the tokens get the same expiry
time as a result.  That means that when a Bayes expire is due, the code
will go away and spend ages trying, and failing, to reduce the size of
the database.  It will fix itself when it's learnt enough new tokens to
have be able to delete some old ones.

Check it by running a mail through "spamassassin -D" and look for any
messages to do with bayes expiry.

If that is it, the solution is just to live with a large DB for
a while.  If you set "bayes_auto_expire 0" in local.cf, and run
"sa-learn --force-expire" by hand (or by cron) occasionally, it will
stop SA from trying to expire on-the-fly, and it should fix itself
eventually (how quickly depends on how much mail you get).

ISTR you can tweak the bayes parameters to make it reach that point
faster, but I can't remember (and I'm not sure it's worth worrying
about :))

Nick