26.2.4 Check that the Job Controller and Dispatcher are Running

The MTA Job Controller handles the execution of the MTA processing jobs, including most outgoing (master) channel jobs.

Some MTA channels, such as the MTA’s multi-threaded SMTP channels, include resident server processes that process incoming messages. These servers handle the slave (incoming) direction for the channel. The MTA Dispatcher handles the creation of such MTA servers. Dispatcher configuration options control the availability of the servers, the number of created servers, and how many connections each server can handle.

To check that the Job Controller and Dispatcher are present, and to see if there are MTA servers and processing jobs running, use the command imsimta process. Under idle conditions the command should result in job_controller and dispatcher processes. For example:

# imsimta process
USER      PID S VSZ    RSS   STIME    TIME     COMMAND
mailsrv 9567 S 18416 9368  02:00:02  0:00  /opt/SUNWmsgsr/lib/tcp_smtp_server
mailsrv 6573 S 18112 5720  Jul_13    0:00  /opt/SUNWmsgsr/lib/job_controller
mailsrv 9568 S 18416 9432  02:00:02  0:00  /opt/SUNWmsgsr/lib/tcp_smtp_server
mailsrv 6574 S 17848 5328  Jul_13    0:00  /opt/SUNWmsgsr/lib/dispatcher

If the Job Controller is not present, the files in the /msg-svr-base/data/queue directory will get backed up and messages will not be delivered. If you do not have a Dispatcher, then you will be unable to receive any SMTP connections.

For more information on imsimta process, refer to the imsimta process in Sun Java System Messaging Server 6.3 Administration Reference.

You could also use imsimta qm jobs to list, channel by channel, all active and pending delivery processing jobs currently being managed by the Job Controller. Additional cumulative information is provided for each channel such as the number of message files successfully delivered and those requeued for subsequent delivery attempts. The command syntax is as follows:

jobs [-[no]hosts] [-[no]jobs] [-[no]messages] [channel-name]

If neither the Job Controller nor the Dispatcher is present, you should review the dispatcher.log-* or job_controller.log-* file in /msg-svr-base/data/log

If the log files do not exist or do not indicate an error, start the processes by using the start-msg command. For more information, refer to the MTA command-line utilities chapter in the start-msg in Sun Java System Messaging Server 6.3 Administration Reference.

You should not see multiple instances of the Dispatcher or Job Controller when you run imsimta process, unless the system is in the process of forking (fork()) child processes before it executes (exec()) the program that needs to run. However, the time frame during such duplication is very small.