Technical issues on Linux

[albert at ccs.neu.edu (Albert Cahalan)]

>>> 1)  The TCP connect() system call apparently never times out in current
>>>   versions of Linux.  This caused mail server crashes here during the AOL
>>>   outage Tuesday (hundreds of sendmail processes building up, waiting
>>>   indefinitely for the AOL server to come back up).

> Item 1...  Don't really have more info.  The sendmail processes were
> filling up IP connection slots all day.  On BSD systems, there is a
> 60-second timeout on the connect() system call.

Replace sendmail. Though /usr/src/linux/Documentation/Changes tells you
to replace it for other reasons, the Changes file also says this:

> While we're on the subject, changes made for the 2.0.x series cause
> the connect() Perl (both 4 and 5) call to time out while connecting to
> remote systems.  The problem is not actually in the connect() call;
> rather, the optional bind() call usually used with connect() causes the
> problem.  Remove the bind() call and your Perl scripts should connect.