On Thu, May 28, 1998 at 10:29:17PM -0400, Corbett Klempay wrote:
Does anyone have any quantitative (or maybe even non-quantitative) idea of Mailman's performance, especially compared to direct competitors such as Majordomo?
It's more efficient than Majordomo, especially when doing bulk mailing.
Do we know of any very high volume lists being run on Mailman
How high volume? I know of some lists with 5000+ users, they don't seem to have any problems. The biggest one I run has been over 2000 strong.
(or is this even a good idea?). I imagine that something like ezmlm would probably obliterate both Majordomo as well as Mailman as far as performance, but I don't see the average list needing the kind of fiendish performance ezmlm provides (don't me wrong; ezmlm has a lot to recommend it); most people could (and would) trade ezmlm's speed for Mailman's slick web interface. But what I'm wondering is do we know how big this performance tradeoff is?
You'd do a lot better performance wise trading sendmail for qmail than Mailman for ezmlm. Also, within a few months we're going to have an option to keep mailman as a persistant server, to avoid the costs involved of always starting up.
Also, I saw that there was a mention on the TODO list about adding support for other MTAs (such as qmail). Has anyone implemented this on their own yet? Would providing support for qmail affect (enhance) performance much?
I'm working on this feature as we speak. Like I said, the underlying mail transport is more important than the MLM software in terms of how many messages you can push through a machine.
I'm trying to (seeing how smooth Mailman is) see what kind of potential user base there will be; I'm wondering at what point the list becomes too speed-critical to allow use of Mailman. Any comments?
Well, I think that the current way the locking is done might cause some problems on lists that have large, large numbers of users AND get tons of users. I don't know how large those numbers are yet, but the big list I run has gotten 100 posts in an hour before, without problem.
The locking is going to eventually become more fine-grained, so even for the largest lists, I don't think it'll be a problem.
John
On Thu, May 28, 1998 at 10:29:17PM -0400, Corbett Klempay wrote: | Does anyone have any quantitative (or maybe even non-quantitative) idea of | Mailman's performance, especially compared to direct competitors such as | Majordomo?
not that i know of.
| Do we know of any very high volume lists being run on Mailman | (or is this even a good idea?). I
The highest volume that i have heard of is ~250. Over the next number of weeks, i plan to give mailman a test run for some large lists. If i'm lucky i'll get some lists with thousands of subscribers.
I think large lists with mailman is a good idea, and that mailman's programming is structured in a way that if it cannot handle very large lists as is, it will be easy to accomodate the needed changes. I am certain it will become quite scalable over the summer :)
| imagine that something like ezmlm would | probably obliterate both Majordomo as well as Mailman as far as | performance, but I don't see the average list needing the kind of fiendish | performance ezmlm provides (don't me wrong; ezmlm has a lot to recommend | it); most people could (and would) trade ezmlm's speed for Mailman's slick | web interface. But what I'm wondering is do we know how big this | performance tradeoff is?
As an administrator of a very high volume list site, i can assure you that the efficiency of the MTA is so much more important than the efficiency of the mailling list manager that the efficiency of the mailling list manager can *almost* be ignored.
As i see it, mailman's efficiency is OK now, and can and will be made more and more efficient by implementing better handling of locking the lists, general code cleanup, and perhaps a client-server model.
Without any hard data, in many ways it seems like mailman will outperform majordomo with most list operations in loaded circumstances simply because it deals with a lot less file io, which is one the main things that tends to slow down a host that is delivering lots of mail.
Also, with the upcoming use of deliveries via smtp, it will be much easier to have the web interface for mailman on one machine and the outgoing deliveries happen on another machine. To my knowledge, most really large listservs do this, and it would be quite difficult to get to work with majordomo.
I'm not familiar with ezmlm, but I know that no matter how efficient it is, it almost certainly won't make a noticable difference compared to differences produced by how an MTA handles mail, and if it's difficult to have delivery occur on a separate machine with ezmlm, then it can't scale as well as a mailling list manager that allows for that separation.
| | Also, I saw that there was a mention on the TODO list about adding support | for other MTAs (such as qmail). Has anyone implemented this on their own | yet? Would providing support for qmail affect (enhance) performance much?
the upcoming smtp changes will make any MTA work for delivery. i don't think anyone has made something that will manage aliases for qmail, though.
| I'm trying to (seeing how smooth Mailman is) see what kind of potential | user base there will be; I'm wondering at what point the list becomes too | speed-critical to allow use of Mailman. Any comments?
Once mailman is past it's beta stage, i'm willing to bet that it will handle large lists very well. In the mean time, there may well be some unforeseen glitches.
scott
On Thu, May 28, 1998 at 07:41:17PM -0700, John Viega wrote: | On Thu, May 28, 1998 at 10:29:17PM -0400, Corbett Klempay wrote: | > Does anyone have any quantitative (or maybe even non-quantitative) idea of | > Mailman's performance, especially compared to direct competitors such as | > Majordomo? | | It's more efficient than Majordomo, especially when doing bulk mailing. | | > Do we know of any very high volume lists being run on Mailman | | How high volume? I know of some lists with 5000+ users, they don't | seem to have any problems. The biggest one I run has been over 2000 | strong.
Wow!
| > (or is this even a good idea?). I imagine that something like ezmlm would | > probably obliterate both Majordomo as well as Mailman as far as | > performance, but I don't see the average list needing the kind of fiendish | > performance ezmlm provides (don't me wrong; ezmlm has a lot to recommend | > it); most people could (and would) trade ezmlm's speed for Mailman's slick | > web interface. But what I'm wondering is do we know how big this | > performance tradeoff is? | | You'd do a lot better performance wise trading sendmail for qmail than | Mailman for ezmlm.
just wanted to suggest vmailer as well as qmail. personally, i like vmailer a lot more. it's about as efficient as qmail for mailling list delivery, a lot more efficient than qmail for 1 to 1 delivery, it has sane logging, and is more effectively a sendmail drop in replacement. i'm using it with mailman, and it required no changes whatsoever to the distribution to work.
scott
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Scott