Error: "mta crashed on signal 11..."

Products

• Messaging Gateway

Issue/Introduction

Symantec Messaging Gateway (SMG) sends an alert message indicating that the mail server process (mta) has crashed with a signal 11. The alert message may or may not contain a dump of the mail server's running configuration file.

mta crashed on signal 11 on hostname.domain.com exit code: 0x008B

Program output:
[Wed 11 Jan 2017 08:44:18] <(nil)> delay_dsn: registering options
[Wed 11 Jan 2017 08:44:18] <(nil)> mlec_bes_dh: MinSSLProtocol setting is invalid, defaulting to NONE
[Wed 11 Jan 2017 08:44:18] <(nil)> heartbeat_init -> gimli_heartbeat_attach gimli: GIMLI_HB_FD is not set
[Wed 11 Jan 2017 08:44:18] <(nil)> heartbeat_init -> Default ThreadPool SIEVE_IO {

<dump of the configuration file>

[Wed 11 Jan 2017 08:44:18] <0x7fcff0a7da00> setting dns backend to 'ares'
[Wed 11 Jan 2017 08:44:18] <0x7fcff0a7da00> Scriptlets License Validated.
[Wed 11 Jan 2017 08:44:19] <0x7fcff0a7da00> DKIM: Implicit domain configuration disabled since no global selector and/or key format is defined.

Storing data in /data/scanner/jobs/mta/2017.02.08-14.44.00

Cause

A signal 11 message indicates that the mail server process attempted to use memory outside of its assigned memory space, and was terminated by the operating system. The mail server process is then automatically restarted.

Resolution

While process crashes are usually an indication of a software defect, a single crash and restart do not represent a high severity issue. No email is lost during the crash and any email message being delivered when the crash occurs will be reattempted once the mail server has restarted.

If the event reoccurs or internal policy requires a support case be opened for all Alert messages, collect a diagnostics file from the affected scanner host with "All logs" and "MTA core files" selected, in preparation for contacting Broadcom Support.