[Mailman-Users] mailman and qmail for production?

[Brad Knowles]

At 2:54 PM -0700 2004-12-16, Christopher Hammond wrote:

>  1) is qmail an acceptable MTA for a production environment?  if not ... any
>  recommendations?

	It is not my choice, and I believe that the integration between 
qmail and Mailman may be lacking in some areas.  I know what the 
integration is like between Mailman and either postfix or sendmail, 
and both of those should definitely be able to handle the MTA load, 
if configured properly.  I've done millions of mail messages per day 
on properly configured machines.

>  2) can mailman, running on a dedicated machine ( pIII with 512 Mb RAM ),
>  handle 30-75k contacts?

	Properly configured, I don't see that this would be a problem. 
However, you should read 
<http://www.python.org/cgi-bin/faqw-mm.py?req=show&file=faq01.024.htp>.

	I can tell you that your disk subsystem, your OS & filesystem 
configuration, and your amount and configuration of memory are going 
to be critical factors in determining whether or not you will be able 
to make this work with this class of hardware.  You can do it if you 
know what you're doing, but it will take some work to put all the 
right pieces together in the right way.

>  3) does mailmain provide a more detailed subscriber form whereas I could use
>  it to capture the demographic data of our subscribers?  (ie., physical
>  address, telephone number, etc )

	No.  Moreover, there is no place to store this information. 
You'd need to make some fairly significant modifications to Mailman 
to account for the added information you want.

>  4) is mailman actually what I should be using for this?

	It sounds to me like what you really want is a Customer 
Relationship Manager system.  See 
<http://www.python.org/cgi-bin/faqw-mm.py?req=show&file=faq03.018.htp>.

-- 
Brad Knowles, <brad at stop.mail-abuse.org>

"Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little
temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety."

     -- Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790), reply of the Pennsylvania
     Assembly to the Governor, November 11, 1755

   SAGE member since 1995.  See <http://www.sage.org/> for more info.