September, 2, 2003 archives

the amount of garbage being flung at lists.mysql.com seems rather impressive to me, and i can only imagine what a mess high-profile providers are facing these days. there's such a storm of what i've dubbed strange quit that i wonder if it isn't a ddos directed at the server. (i explained the behavior on the qpsmtpd mailing list. the server is now rejecting hundreds of connections per minute from hosts that have previously displayed this behavior, and picking up a new host or two per minute.)

and then there's the hundred connections per minute or so from hosts found on blacklists or that are trying to send bounce messages to addresses that do not accept them because they never send mail.

luckily, the server is holding up fine. i've only been putting in a little effort to tighten things up and get better logging.

(i've also lowered the spamassassin threshold at which my personal server simply rejects incoming mail.)

the symptom: qmail isn't delivering any outgoing mail, and is processing local mail slowly, without any indication in the logs as to why.

the problem: a version of vim compiled with the python interface is sucking up all of the cpu time after the controlling terminal (an ssh session) was disconnected. this bug exists in the version of vim packaged by red hat for 7.3, at least. the bug is explained in the vim faq.

the solution: kill the out-of-control vim.

needless to say, drawing the line between the symptoms and the solution took quite a few more zigs and zags.

i watched hannibal over the weekend, and while both julianne moore and anthony hopkins were fun to watch, i thought that the movie fell rather flat. there just wasn't much tension in the movie, and ray liotta's character seemed to serve little more purpose than a red-shirted ensign on star trek.

i wonder why imdb is missing the caron over the z in željko ivanek's first name.