Scan timeout value for amavis running clamav

[Mark Martinec]

Anirudha Patil,

> I have Postfix 2.5.5 running with Amavis [amavisd-new-2.6.4 (20090625)]
> integrated with ClamAV 0.96.1
> 
> I need to know if there is any default *Scan Timeout* or *Timeout *for
> amavis process. I can see the below limit options in amavisd.conf but no
> options for how long will amavis process would scan a given email before
> timing out if any
> [...] 
> Is there any child_timeout value associated with amavis, if yes, what is it
> and if it has any default value ?
> 
> Please find my sample amavid.conf file.

There is a $child_timeout setting, with a default value of 8*60 seconds,
i.e. 8 minutes. It limits the total time for one mail message processing
spent in amavisd. The sublimits (virus, spam, ... scans) are derived
dynamically from $child_timeout and actual times spent so far.

With your version 2.6.4 the time limits are rather coarse.
The situation in this respect is significantly improved with 2.7.0 :

Release notes:

- improved support for pre-queue content filtering setups: reorganized time
  limiting on processing to obey more strictly a deadline time, which is the
  sum of $child_timeout and a timestamp at the moment of a reception of a
  complete message (SMTP data-end time). The deadline time is also passed
  to SpamAssassin, which since version 3.3.0 supports a 'master_deadline'
  option and can gracefully terminate its processing on a time limit, while
  still providing results collected so far.

  The setting $sa_timeout is now retired: the variable is still declared
  for backward compatibility, but has no effect. Instead, the time available
  for spam scanning is automatically determined from $child_timeout, taking
  into consideration the actual time left till the deadline;

Mark