[Mailman-Users] Bounces Issue - Revisit II

[J C Lawrence]

On Thu, 16 Dec 1999 19:43:22 -0800 (PST) 
Dan Busarow <dan at dpcsys.com> wrote:

> It's an announce only list, the owner fired off a message and 5
> minutes later the machine was running out of swap because of all
> the python processes handling bounces.  Only about 1500 messages
> had gone out and we had in excess of 100 python's running. (P400
> w/ only 64M RAM).

I find it more curious that your MTA is configured to allow 100's of
simultaneous deliveries.  If you go limit the number of incoming
connections under your MTA, this problem wouldn't/shouldn't
reproduce.

Consider:  *ANYBODY*, right now, can bring your server to its knees
with a mail storm.  Bad ju jus.  Configure your MTA to protect
itself and your system.  Let your secondary MX'es, who are similarly 
configured, absorb peak loads.  Let the originating sites hold the
mail in normal SMTP fashion until the peak has smoothed out a bit.

-- 
J C Lawrence                                 Home: claw at kanga.nu
----------(*)                              Other: coder at kanga.nu
--=| A man is as sane as he is dangerous to his environment |=--