4.2 lost mail

[William L. Sebok]

> Sendmail checks the load average and queues up message for later
> delivery if the load is over some N (around 8 or so I think).
> This mode does not work--the messages are mostly lost for ever
> when the load goes over N.  You can change this magic constant
> in one of the .h files to 9999, make a new sendmail, and delivery
> on busy Vaxes gets much more reliable.
> 
> I find the presence of this bug to be amazing, considering all
> the sendmails that are out there.  I posted this bug report a 
> few months ago.  I guess most people have quiet machines.
>
> Spoken: Mark Weiser 	ARPA:	mark at maryland	Phone: (301) 454-7817

We have anything but a quiet machine: with load average often over 10.  However
I haven't seen sendmail lose mail. The mail does get queued.  At least the
above statement about messages being mostly lost would have to false here.
-- 
Bill Sebok			Princeton University, Astrophysics
{allegra,akgua,burl,cbosgd,decvax,ihnp4,noao,princeton,vax135}!astrovax!wls