bootup question

when I first bootup my mail server I have say 7000 messages in the
queue. sendmail 8.14 actually spawns a process for each message. So I
end up with like 7000 processes. Why does it to this?

100 root \_ [sendmail ]
101 root \_ [sendmail ]
102 root \_ [sendmail ]
103 root \_ [sendmail ]
104 root \_ sendmail: q4/m0PJ0jrZ003943 mxer.domain.ca.:
client EHLO
...
6874 root \_ sendmail: q4/m0PJ0jrZ003943 mxer.domain.ca.:
client EHLO
6875 root \_ sendmail: q4/m0PIp15M001494 mxer.domain.ca.:
client MAIL
6876 root \_ [sendmail ]
6877 root \_ [sendmail ]
6878 root \_ [sendmail ]
6879 root \_ [sendmail ]
6880 root \_ [sendmail ]
6881 root \_ [sendmail ]
6882 root \_ sendmail: q4/m0PJ1Vfm004113 mxer.domain.ca.:
client greeting
6883 root \_ sendmail: q4/m0PJ79SH005139 mxer.domain.ca.:
client greeting



how do I stop this? isn't there suppose to be a limit to this? I'm using:

define(`confMAX_QUEUE_CHILDREN', `25')dnl
define(`confMAX_DAEMON_CHILDREN', `50')dnl
define(`confMAX_RUNNERS_PER_QUEUE', `100')dnl

in my sendmail.mc file. Seems to do nothing. This is under linux 2.4.35.