cPanel spamd resource consumption high

Spamd is one the highest resource consumer on a cPanel server. It allocates a lot of memory from the get-go and holds on to it throughout. There is a way to limit the number of spamd processes that are spawned. On a cPanel server, which is what this guide covers, there is a configuration file called /etc/cpspamd.conf with the following lines:


maxspare=1
maxchildren=3


For a leaner server. we recommend dropping maxchildren to 1 and maxspare to 1. This will save a good hundred of megs of memory. Don’t forget to restart exim for these changes to take effect.