Re: Re: what is "unable to fork" email err message means? (fwd)

[Arun Sharma <arun@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

On Thu, Apr 05, 2001 at 03:06:01AM +0530, M K Saravanan wrote:
> 
> 
> ---------- Forwarded message ----------
> Date: Wed, 4 Apr 2001 10:41:21 -0700
> From: Ravi <ravi@xxxxxxxxxxx>
> Reply-To: ilugc@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
> To: ilugc@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
> Subject: Re: what is "unable to fork" email err message means?
> 
> => Unable to fork: temporary failure. (#4.3.0)
> => I'm not going to try again; this message has been in the queue too long.
> 
> 	2. The box running the MTA on Yahoo's end has most likely run out of
> PIDs (because its being DDoS'ed?) and cannot "fork()" any children processes
> (see /usr/src/linux/README) to go out and deliver mails to each recipient,
> and hence bitches, and returns mail back to sender.

Yahoo! runs FreeBSD and the default install sends out an email each day
with the daily activity. Any competent sys admin should notice it and
take corrective action. I'd expect Yahoo! to have more advanced monitoring
capabilities than the basic FreeBSD.

It may just be that the box is genuinely out of juice and Yahoo! is not
able to spend enough money on hardware to handle the load given their
stock price ? 

	-Arun