Problems with Zimbra Cron Jobs

[soxfan]

I'm having problems with a couple of the Zimbra cron jobs. The first issue is with the "zmpurgemessages" perl script. When it is run through cron it just does not work. I've changed the line in the crontab file to dump output to a file, and the message I get is "Received SOAP fault: authentication failed for zimbra (empty password)". But if I run the command from the system prompt, logged in as the zimbra user, it runs fine. I posted about this problem a few months back, and never got a solution. I've been living with it, since I can run it manually, but figured now that I've got another "cron" problem I'd try again for a solution to this one.

The second problem is with the "zmtrainsa" script, specifically when it calls the dspam_clean program. This process has been running fine up until late last week. However, starting late last week I would come in to work to find that email delivery had stopped. In researching this issue I found that the dspam_clean process was still running and taking up 80+% of the CPU and a good chunk of memory also. The only thing I could do was kill this process and then stop and start zimbra. I have since commented out the call to dspam_clean and things seem to be back to normal, but I'm sure this process should be running. I'm still testing and evaluating Zimbra, so at this pont the server isn't necessarily "mission-critical". However one of the accounts I do have on this server is a "spam" account, where spam messages from our email gateway are dumped. I don't if we have simply overloaded the server with spam, and this is causing problems.

If anyone has any suggestions on how to fix either problem they would be very much appreciated.

TIA,
John

[KevinH]

What version are you on? These are both fixed in 3.2 and I think the first is also fixed in 3.1.4

[soxfan]

I'm currently running 3.1.0_GA_328 (OSE). I'll try upgrading to 3.1.4. Version 3.2 isn't officially released yet, is it?

[bobby]

the first problem is Bug 8716 - "zmmaintables and zmpurgemessages in cron fail auth". i don't think it's fixed for 3.1.4, but the fix is pretty easy; just edit those scripts and add the path for the zmlocalconfig command (/opt/zimbra/bin/zmlocalconfig)

[soxfan]

Thanks... upgrading to 3.1.4 didn't fix either problem. I'll try the script modifications for the first problem, and I guess I'll wait until 3.2 is officially released to see if it fixes the second problem.

[ipguru99]

I am having the same problem. i haven't upgraded to 3.1.4 yet, I have to look that up as well ;-)

But I was intrigued by your comment, 'edit the script'.. and the zmlocalconfig thing.

Can you explain in more detail? I looked at the script and can't find any mention of a path or zmlocalconfig? I will go look up bug 8716 and see if it is in there.. but I figured just asking might be quicker.

Thanks!

[soxfan]

Editing the scripts seemed to fix the problem with zmpurgemessages.

For the previous poster, the scripts are in /opt/zimbra/libexec. The lines you would edit are 96 for the zmpurgemessages script and 84 for zmmaintaintables.

[ipguru99]

Thanks, I have added the path... I will take the root cron out (which I added at your suggestion, and it does work ;-).

I didn't get to upgrade, very weird problem with my /etc/hosts file doesn't allow me to upgrade to 3.1.4.. but it seems ok enough to be running 3.1.3?? I posted it if you want to take a look
Please fix your /etc/hosts file...

Anyway, thanks for the clarification!

[scottp]

I have analysed the problem with dspam_clean, but not the solution.

Currently dspam_clean will take up 80% of CPU+ and continue running forever. On logging system calls I discovered it is sitting in a loop calling "time" continually. So it just takes up CPU and does nothing else - no disk or other system calls - just 'time'

This means that it never succeeds and the spam folder in dspam/var has got to 3.5GB.

I am running 3.1.0 - and intend to update to 3.1.4 ASAP but I suspect from these threads that it will not solve the problem.

Scott

[Alfspace]

this week my mta server is doing the same thing, dspam_clean takes a lot of cpu and the queue today was of 3800 messages.

We upgraded to 3.1.4 since 3 weeks ago.

What can we do before moving to a new fixed version ?

Any scripts we could modify ?

help greatly appreciated.