Microsoft KB Archive/173512

XCON: MTA Logs Warning Events When Queues Reach Thresholds

PSS ID Number: Q173512 Article last modified on 04-03-1998

WinNT:5.0 SP2

winnt

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The information in this article applies to:

 == Microsoft Exchange Server, version 5.0 Service Pack 2 == 

= SUMMARY =

The Microsoft Exchange Message Transfer Agent (MTA) in versions 1459.39 and later allow Exchange Server administrators to configure queue thresholds that cause the MTA to log warnings in the application event log when the specified queue size has been exceeded.

= MORE INFORMATION =

The MTA includes four new registry settings that can be used to configure warning events to be logged:

Work queue alarm on Work queue alarm off Outbound queue alarm on Outbound queue alarm off

All four of these case-sensitive registry values are REG_DWORDs and can be added to the following registry key:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE

The Work Queue alarm may log two different events to notify the administrator when the Work Queue reaches a certain size. One event notifies the administrator that the Work Queue has reached the “alarm on” threshold. This warning is logged with the Event ID of 666 and looks similar to the following:

Event ID: 666 Source: MSExchangeMTA Type: Warning Category: Resource Description: The MTA work queue is backlogged with 600 messages in the queue. [MTA SUBMIT 18 231] (14)

After the Work Queue diminishes in size, the MTA will log a warning with the Event ID of 667 that looks similar to the following:

Event ID: 667 Source: MSExchangeMTA Type: Warning Category: Resource Description: The MTA work queue backlog has subsided leaving 300 messages in the queue. [MTA DISP:RESULT 23 234] (14)

The Work Queue alarm can be configured by using only the “Work queue alarm on” registry value. When the “Work queue alarm off” registry value is not present, the MTA automatically substitutes half the value specified in the “Work queue alarm on” registry value for the “off” value which causes the 667 event to be triggered. The example events shown earlier illustrate this configuration where the “Work queue alarm off” value is not present in the registry and the “Work queue alarm on” registry value is set to 600 decimal.

The administrator can configure the “Work queue alarm off” registry value to log the 667 event at a different value. For example, if the “Work queue alarm off” registry value is set to a value of 0, the 667 event is not logged until the Work Queue is empty.

If the administrator sets the “Work queue alarm off” value to 100 decimal, the 667 event is logged when the Work Queue diminishes to 100 messages. If the “Work queue alarm off” value is set to a higher value than the “Work queue alarm on” value, the value specified for “Work queue alarm off” is ignored and the default value of half the “Work queue alarm on” value is used instead.

The “Outbound queue alarm on” and “Outbound queue alarm off” registry values work similarly to the Work Queue alarm settings. The Outbound Queue alarm works independently of the Work Queue alarm. The Outbound Queue alarm logs a 659 Event Id when a queue reaches the specified limit. For example, if the “Outbound queue alarm on” registry value is configured to generate the 659 event when an outbound queue reaches 500 messages and an X.400 Connector becomes backlogged to 500 messages or more, an event similar to the following is logged in the application event log:

Event ID: 659 Source: MSExchangeMTA Type: Warning Category: Resource Description: The queue for /O=MS/OU=GUITARS/CN=CONFIGURATION /CN=CONNECTIONS/CN=X400 CONNECTOR TO BRASS_KITTEN is backlogged with 500 messages in the queue. [MTA GATEWAY 45 512] (14)

When the backlog subsides, a 660 event similar to the following is logged:

Event ID: 660 Source: MSExchangeMTA Type: Warning Category: Resource Description: The queue backlog for /O=MICROSOFT/OU=GUITARS /CN=CONFIGURATION/CN=CONNECTIONS/CN=X400 CONNECTOR TO BRASS_KITTEN has subsided leaving 250 messages in the queue. [MTA GATEWAY 45 512] (14)

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========================================================= Keywords : XCON Component : MTA Version : WinNT:5.0 SP2 Platform : winnt Issue type : kbinfo ============================================================================= Copyright Microsoft Corporation 1998.