Infopackets Main Server Woes

After announcing that most of the bugs have been worked out of the new infopackets mail server, the main web server started having issues of its own. Subsequently, I was only able to send out 2 newsletters last wee k.

In not so many words, the main server appears to be choking on bounceback email messages. Since there are literally hundreds of bounceback messages received every day [due to viruses and spam], the infopackets server eventually became overloaded with processes which looped endlessly, caused high CPU usage, and ate away at valuable memory resources. The processes were overloading the server so bad that they stopped other legitimate processes from running on the server!

Side note: A bounceback is a an email message which has been rejected. For example, if you accidentally mistyped your friend's email address and then sent it, you might receive a bounceback message stating that the email could not be delivered.

Seeking Technical Help

I have reported the problem to my hosting company. Unfortunately, the tech help they have provided has been less than satisfactory and I have not been able to resolve the issue.

Desperate for resolution and unable to seek meaningful technical advice, I spent most of last week writing a specialized script which polls the main server for looping processes and then kills them. In a nutshell, the script I wrote essentially stops the server from becoming overloaded.

Unfortunately, I don't know when this problem will be resolved. However, I have been in touch with a highly recommended server management company via email and am waiting to speak with them over the phone.

Unfortunately, their rates start at $65.00 per hour and I'm flat broke. I will keep everyone informed of what is happening with the server.

RE: Free Downloadable Learning Video

On a lighter note, I made an ultra cool video learning tutorial which shows the stuck processes which are currently plaguing the infopackets web server. The video shows much of what I just explained and offers a graphical view of how processes can run astray.

http://www.infopackets.com/articles/killing+stuck+processes.htm