[ic] Unable to send mail / GPG errors cleared up after changing to Net::SMTP

[Mike Heins]

Quoting JT Justman (jt at airdelights.com):
> Hi!
> 
> Our catalog (IC 5.2.1, offline credit cards, HIGH traffic mode) had been
> having more and more intermitent "Unable to send mail using
> /usr/sbin/sendmail" errors and "PGP failed with error level 12, status
> 12" / "PGP hard failure" errors.
> 
> First I applied the code from a patch that makes Order.pm retry three
> times when doing encryption. The second try was always successful, but
> the mail errors didn't change.
> 
> Then I specified the use of Net::SMTP in catalog.cfg:
> 
> SendMailProgram  Net::SMTP
> Variable  MV_SMTPHOST  127.0.0.1
> 
> Since then I have had zero mail errors and no need to retry on gpg. I
> have several custom mail messages that go out for each order, and this
> must have been the load that was slowing down gpg, rather than the other
> way around.
> 
> Just wanted to put that idea out there for the potential benefit of
> anyone who may have experienced these errors. From reading the archives,
> this situation might have be caused either as a result of having my temp
> files on a RAID-1 volume, or of having simply reached the limit of HIGH
> traffic mode; re-partitioning and switching to RPC are not easy to do on
> a production server, and for the time being at least, Net::SMTP handles
> the mail transactions efficiently enough to dodge that bullet.

Good suggestion. Though I take issue with:

> switching to RPC are not easy to do on a production server,

It is extremely easy to do; just change the TRAFFIC variable 
to rpc and away you go.

You might want to move to 5.4 prior to that, though, as it more reliably
keeps track of processes. I also usually add:

	ChildLife 30 minutes

on a busy server. Also, an occasional bludgeoning helps keep zombie
servers away:

   killall interchange; sleep 2; killall \
	-KILL interchange; /usr/local/interchange/bin/restart

-- 
Mike Heins
Perusion -- Expert Interchange Consulting    http://www.perusion.com/
phone +1.765.647.1295  tollfree 800-949-1889 <mike at perusion.com>

Few blame themselves until they have exhausted all other possibilities.
 -- anonymous