Admin 101: Postfix smtp limits

I’ve just moved all my sites on to a new install of Ubuntu on one of my VPses. This site and In Photos are now on the same server again and the VPS has finally calmed down.

Between configuring Apache (turn off keep alives, and reduce the number of child processes), installing xcache and the WordPress object cache and configuring it, and configuring MySQL I totally forgot about Postfix.

I did install Postgrey of course but when Blacknight switched the ocaoimh.ie web and mail traffic to this server things started to go screwy.
Load average shot up, I thought it was Apache and spent quite some time playing with the number of processes, all to no avail. I didn’t immediately notice the large number of smtp processes when I did a “ps auxw”. I was looking at Apache.

What was happening was a rumplestiltskin attack on my server. Rogue bots all over the Internet try to send spam emails to mail servers using randomly generated addresses in the hope of guessing a correct one. It happens all the time, and I had configured Postfix correctly in the past, but I had forgot this time.

So, if your server is suffering under the strain of too many Postfix smtp processes open up /etc/postfix/master.cf and look for the smtp line:

smtp inet n – – – – smtpd

Change the last dash to a number, try small first, depending on how much mail traffic your server gets. I changed mine to 3, restarted Postfix, and the server is humming along nicely now. Postfix was actually using up more resources than Apache during those attacks! It’s unfortunate that Ubuntu (and probably every other dist of Linux) allows unlimited number of smtp processes.

Oh, I’m hosted at Linode. Yes that’s an affiliate link, but I’ve been using them for years and been very happy with them.

Positive Bad Company 2 Results

Celebrate when you’re doing well! The following screenshots were taken of my stats during this gaming session and I was very pleased with myself.

I haven’t played much in the last 2 days but I did play 2 rounds with a (mostly) good group of guys yesterday evening. There was one annoying wookie on my squad who persisted in staying well back from the main fighting. I mean like, 1 base back far back from the fighting. I spawned on him once and cursed him for having to run so far to join the action again. I could have sworn we lost one game and then won the second game while defending but my stats say I won both games. Is that a bug?

Bad Company 2 Shotguns

Spurred on by the videos below I decided to give the shotguns in Bad Company 2 a go yesterday evening. I played about 15 minutes of a game of Rush on Arica Harbour. I joined the game late when our team was about to lose Alpha and then quickly lost Bravo in the first base and the fight in the town went just as quickly too.

The shotguns (pre patch) are great, within their limitations. You’ve obviously got reduced range and on a wide open map like Arica Harbour they’re not ideal but in close combat when the other team had bombed the third Bravo it was effective. According to my stats I got 4 kills with them. 2 for each of the 870 and Saiga, and 1 headshot for each too! I preferred the Saiga for it’s semi auto fire, and switched back and forth between magnum ammo and extra shells so I couldn’t really tell a difference in such a short game.

The two videos below give conflicting advice. Use whatever suits you best. 🙂


(via)

I always wondered about this. If you quit during a game of Rush does that count as a loss on your stats? I don’t think so. My “rounds played” and win/loss haven’t changed as I never finished the game I was playing.

Rocking Rush, the video

Geoff posted a new Bad Company 2 video yesterday evening, one in which Dave and myself feature. The clip of the attack on a crate in Laguna Presa was one we played a few weeks back. I was across the road laying down smoke but eventually got spotted by an assault guy.

The other team were seriously good, and I think they held us off the next base. (Thanks Dave for the heads up. I hadn’t checked Youtube yet this morning!)

We started off badly. Dave and I. He joi…

We started off badly. Dave and I. He joined me and the team I was initially matched with overran us in every game. They used helis to drop off soldiers behind our lines, they used mobile spawn points effectively, they beat us to a pulp. Dave blogged about the night’s gameplay too.

Unfortunately my PS3 disconnected twice. The first time it totally crashed and needed to be rebooted, and the second time I had just flanked a recon and an assault guy on a roof. I stabbed the assault guy as he was closer and moved away to hit the recon guy when I got a black screen and was disconnected! ARGH! I was so pissed off. I checked my stats in the game later I didn’t get a dog tag for that kill. FFS. I was fit to …

After I reconnected we thought a strategic retreat from that game was in order and eventually found ourselves against a better matched team. We won several rounds, even holding them off at the second base in Nelson Harbour and the first base in Port Valdez. I stayed in the construction site there for most of that round. First time I had done that and went mad cutting down trees, spotting and taking down enemies. Got a killstreak of 8 for my efforts! The construction site was taken by three enemy at one point, they started to use the heavy MG and watch the field of battle in front, not keeping an eye on the stairs. We rushed back, I was trailing having spawned below and I caught sight of Dave getting another 2 dog tags to add to his considerable collection.

My handy tracer came out too and helped me plant a few CG rockets on tanks, but I was quite proud of myself hitting a tank across the map without tracing it.

On Port Nelson we quickly lost the second Bravo station. I was heading over there when I saw at least 3 of our team outside the building but they failed to stop it. Regardless, we held the attackers off in fine fashion at Alpha.

Always pick up kit, especially if you’re out of ammo! I was leveling up the recon class but I ran out of ammo and David and I were on the roof of the second Bravo on Nelson Bay so no quick access to an assault ammo box. Unfortunately David was taken out by a sniper in a tree and he hit me too but I survived. I was able to get David’s medic kit. Unfortunately by the time I had made sure the coast was clear I was too late to revive him but I made good use of his LMG spawn trapping the other team as they rushed to defuse Alpha. He spawned on me, we took the other crate and moved up!

My KDR has increased to 0.61 (had a positive KDR in a number of games), a nice jump of 0.02. I leveled up to 15, Staff Sergeant III and unlocked magnum ammo which is a beast. For someone who can’t aim to (sometimes) save his life it’s a huge help.

Thanks to Dave, David, and minato88 who made a great squad to fight alongside!

How to download the Halo: Reach beta

  • Fire up Halo ODST.
  • On the main menu select PREVIEW BETA
  • Download

Or maybe it’s not. Some orange woman gives a pretty decent introduction to the game. Looks like it’s the colour on my DVI connection. In this video she looks perfectly fine, bit too much makeup but no umpa lumpa.

Feel the hate on this post’s comments. Some people can’t wait a few hours!

Almost time for shotguns

Bad Company 2 on Xbox and PS3 hasn’t been patched yet but it will be soon. Until it is, shotguns with magnum ammo are way overpowered. Check out this clip via this post.

I haven’t unlocked magnum ammo yet so I can’t try it out. Hopefully soon as I’m very close! Here’s some more info.

And some general tips for BC2 I found on Reddit:

Out this evening with my wife at a Queen tribute band. Woohoo, thanks Dad for babysitting! 🙂