[Mailman-Users] List performance queries

[J C Lawrence]

On Wed, 2 Jul 2003 16:20:32 -0500 
Ed Wilts <ewilts at ewilts.org> wrote:

> How large are the mailman batches?  i.e. How many physical mail
> messages go out?

Configurable.  I'd set SMTP_MAX_RCPTS to be fairly high, tho not more
than 100 (see Chuq von Rospach's notes on the performance impacts and
implications of this setting for more typical MX distributions).

> Am I suicidal for even trying to handle lists this large on this size
> box, or is this even considered a large list?

Nahh, you're still will within the happy spot.  You'll want a good chunk
of RAM and a nice fast IO chain (see the performance notes on the User
FAQ), but even minor tuning you should be fine.

> Next, my users want the ability to periodically refresh the subscriber
> list - they'll actually be coming from an external database.  

No problem.

> At the time of my subscriber refresh, how can I flush any pending
> messages to the list - ie, I don't want to get caught where an earlier
> message is still being retried when the subscriber list changes.  

Don't worry about it.  The list of addresses for a message is defined
when the message is approved for broadcast.  If the list subscriber list
changes after that, only subsequently broadcast messages will get the
new target list.

-- 
J C Lawrence                
---------(*)                Satan, oscillate my metallic sonatas. 
claw at kanga.nu               He lived as a devil, eh?		  
http://www.kanga.nu/~claw/  Evil is a name of a foeman, as I live.