Commercial hosting for Mailman lists?
I moderate a reasonably active discussion list with about 1,000 subscribers (currently on Post.Office). I would like to move my list to Mailman, however, I'm not really set up to run it in house. Is anyone aware of any ISPs that host Mailman on a commercial basis?
TIA,
Brian
P.S. If I were to run Mailman in house (literally in my house) I'd have to contend with a line speed of 128k to the net. I'm wondering if this would pose a troublesome bottleneck and would love feedback from anyone running Mailman across 128k ISDN.
On Fri, 1 Oct 1999, Brian Mulvaney wrote:
I run a list with 65-85 users on it from my apartment over a 33.6 modem. In my sendmail.cf, I have set up the smart relay to use my ISP's smtp server. That way, only one copy goes through the line and it only takes a few seconds for normal messages.
In my sendmail.cf, there is an entry like this:
# Smart host DSsmtp.isp.com # Use this mailer to reach the Smart host DNesmtp
where smtp.isp.com would be my ISP, which can use esmtp. YMMV.
-- Jerry Adlersfluegel
On Fri, Oct 01, 1999 at 06:39:59AM +0100, Brian Mulvaney wrote:
I'm using mailman for hosting of a few very small lists over a similar line and have not yet hit any problems. I don't think it's very mailman specific -- if you can send that volume of mail in the normal way via the line, you can with mailman, and vice versa, as far as I'm aware.
"Brian" == Brian Mulvaney <brianm@rain.com> writes:
Brian> I moderate a reasonably active discussion list with about 1,000 Brian> subscribers (currently on Post.Office). I would like to move Brian> my list to Mailman, however, I'm not really set up to run it in Brian> house. Is anyone aware of any ISPs that host Mailman on a Brian> commercial basis?
Velocet offers mailman services --- contact me if you're interested.
Brian> P.S. If I were to run Mailman in house (literally in my house) Brian> I'd have to contend with a line speed of 128k to the net. I'm Brian> wondering if this would pose a troublesome bottleneck and would Brian> love feedback from anyone running Mailman across 128k ISDN.
I would expect that you simply need to know the bandwidth required by your list. If an average message is 25K (say) and you have 1000 subscribers, then each message consumes 25M of bandwidth. A 128K line has about 1M per minute of "perfect" bandwidth, so in ideal conditions each message to the list would take 1/2 hour of your ISDN to serve.
In reality, SMTP is not that efficient, and I'd expect that 1 hour is good fishing.
Dave.
--
|David Gilbert, Velocet Communications. | Two things can only be | |Mail: dgilbert@velocet.net | equal if and only if they | |http://www.velocet.net/~dgilbert | are precisely opposite. | =========================================================GLO================
At 01:39 AM 10/1/1999 , Brian Mulvaney wrote:
I run a series of mailman lists off of a 28.8 modem. For the most part it's not a big deal. Granted, most of my lists are fairly low activity but, we do get the occasional tempest in a teapot which means the mail queue fills up for a couple of hours as everyone busily swaps messages and then it calms down as they realize they're talking past each other.
If you are running a very active list, I suggest making friends with your ISP and asking very nicely for permission to relay through their mail host. If you get the ok, then the loading on your line should be minimal.
--- eric
Eric S Johansson esj@inguide.com esj@harvee.billerica.ma.us This message was composed using NaturallySpeaking.
On Mon, Oct 04, 1999 at 07:29:50PM -0400, Eric S. Johansson wrote:
Interesting. I thought relaying via your ISP's mail host was practically compulsory for dialup accounts. I even know of ISPs for which I think that's the only way to send email. Does anyone know if this is a realistic view of the world, or am I sadly deluded by happening to have encountered a few unusual ISPs?
At 05:41 AM 10/5/1999 , Michael Stevens wrote:
as others have pointed out, there are an increasing number of ISPs that do block port 25 access to all machines except for their relays. Part of my business is Internet infrastructure consulting and I have a fairly major wholesale provider as one of my clients. They are learning firsthand just how bad "free" Internet access customers can be when it comes to spamming. They are in the process of locking down all of their pops and forcing everyone to relay through their mail servers.
This lock down of dial-up access is unfortunately very necessary but it really hurts small businesses/activists like myself that run servers at the end of a dial-up line. There is an unfortunate tendency in the industry to categorize services as either cheap dial-up accounts connected to a single "client only" PC or expensive leased line accounts for folks with a big budget. I'm finding it increasingly difficult to locate a middle tier of service supporting the intermittently connected server like I have here at Harvee. This middle tier of service is essential for the widespread adoption of thin server technology such as the whistle box and others.
hmmm. smells like a market opportunity is arising.
--- eric
Eric S Johansson esj@inguide.com esj@harvee.billerica.ma.us This message was composed using NaturallySpeaking.
On Tue, Oct 05, 1999 at 09:06:46AM -0400, Eric S. Johansson wrote:
Interesting. I suspect it's seen differently in the UK due to the non-availability of free local calls, making running servers off a dialup line expensive anyway. However, I do find there are ISPs such as Demon (www.demon.net) who seem willing to offer service useful for the slightly more advanced user.
What is a whistle box? I have visions of some ill defined object from the early part of this century, which seems to be unlikely to be what you are referring to.
On Tue, 5 Oct 1999, Michael Stevens wrote:
Not sure if you got an answer, but ...
It is a small custom-made firewall/router/{samba,ftp,web,mail}server suitable for small businesses. It is basically a FreeBSD box with custom bits & pieces (internal UPS for one).
It has provisions for ISDN, PSTN, LL and FR access. It's neat, and has no keyboard to speak of (a keypad from which you key in an enable code, and it grabs its configuration from your ISP), and you can play "pong" on the LCD display! :)
Check out http://www.whistle.com.
Tor Houghton
At 09:06 AM 10/5/99 -0400, you wrote:
This is not just a spam deterrent. It's also an easy way for the ISP's to add on mandatory tag line advertisements to their users' outbound email.
All you need to do is tell the local smtp client to connect to a non standard port on a remote server and mail relay is possible w/o the annoying ads. The other side would of course need to be running smtp service on that specific non standard port, but it's a trivial issue to do that.
Also, The Eudora email clients (at least the windows versions) have an undocumented feature which will allow you to SEND mail through the remote pop3 server once you have already authenticated yourself to it. The remote server must be running the qualcomm pop3 server, I believe. The unix version is free, and very popular in pop3 server land.
-- NAME: Christopher Schulte MAIL: christopher@schulte.org SITE: http://www.schulte.org/ FINGER(PGP): christopher@shell.schulte.org
"Everywhere I go I see your face. Every sound I hear is the sound of your voice. Why are you haunting me?" --Stabbing Westward Darkest Days
On Tue, 5 Oct 1999, Michael Stevens wrote:
My ISP ignored for over a year the fact that they allowed all relaying from anywhere. They changed that (when they put up a different server) but I don't see anything (technically or otherwise) that would keep customers from relaying. I agree with Michael's view that it is part of the Service that they Provide.
-- Jerry Adlersfluegel
"Michael" == Michael Stevens <mstevens@imaginet.co.uk> writes:
Michael> Interesting. I thought relaying via your ISP's mail host was Michael> practically compulsory for dialup accounts. I even know of Michael> ISPs for which I think that's the only way to send Michael> email. Does anyone know if this is a realistic view of the Michael> world, or am I sadly deluded by happening to have encountered Michael> a few unusual ISPs?
There are two answers here. In some cases, ISPs will block you from sending on port 25 to stop spammers from using their accounts. ISPs with free first months are common in this group. Other people subscribe to the DUL (dialup users lists) which allows them to filter out mail from dial-up users that don't forward through their ISP mail servers.
In general, if you can get yourself a static IP, you can probably send out your own mail, otherwise not.
Dave.
--
|David Gilbert, Velocet Communications. | Two things can only be | |Mail: dgilbert@velocet.net | equal if and only if they | |http://www.velocet.net/~dgilbert | are precisely opposite. | =========================================================GLO================
On Fri, 1 Oct 1999, Brian Mulvaney wrote:
I run a list with 65-85 users on it from my apartment over a 33.6 modem. In my sendmail.cf, I have set up the smart relay to use my ISP's smtp server. That way, only one copy goes through the line and it only takes a few seconds for normal messages.
In my sendmail.cf, there is an entry like this:
# Smart host DSsmtp.isp.com # Use this mailer to reach the Smart host DNesmtp
where smtp.isp.com would be my ISP, which can use esmtp. YMMV.
-- Jerry Adlersfluegel
On Fri, Oct 01, 1999 at 06:39:59AM +0100, Brian Mulvaney wrote:
I'm using mailman for hosting of a few very small lists over a similar line and have not yet hit any problems. I don't think it's very mailman specific -- if you can send that volume of mail in the normal way via the line, you can with mailman, and vice versa, as far as I'm aware.
"Brian" == Brian Mulvaney <brianm@rain.com> writes:
Brian> I moderate a reasonably active discussion list with about 1,000 Brian> subscribers (currently on Post.Office). I would like to move Brian> my list to Mailman, however, I'm not really set up to run it in Brian> house. Is anyone aware of any ISPs that host Mailman on a Brian> commercial basis?
Velocet offers mailman services --- contact me if you're interested.
Brian> P.S. If I were to run Mailman in house (literally in my house) Brian> I'd have to contend with a line speed of 128k to the net. I'm Brian> wondering if this would pose a troublesome bottleneck and would Brian> love feedback from anyone running Mailman across 128k ISDN.
I would expect that you simply need to know the bandwidth required by your list. If an average message is 25K (say) and you have 1000 subscribers, then each message consumes 25M of bandwidth. A 128K line has about 1M per minute of "perfect" bandwidth, so in ideal conditions each message to the list would take 1/2 hour of your ISDN to serve.
In reality, SMTP is not that efficient, and I'd expect that 1 hour is good fishing.
Dave.
--
|David Gilbert, Velocet Communications. | Two things can only be | |Mail: dgilbert@velocet.net | equal if and only if they | |http://www.velocet.net/~dgilbert | are precisely opposite. | =========================================================GLO================
At 01:39 AM 10/1/1999 , Brian Mulvaney wrote:
I run a series of mailman lists off of a 28.8 modem. For the most part it's not a big deal. Granted, most of my lists are fairly low activity but, we do get the occasional tempest in a teapot which means the mail queue fills up for a couple of hours as everyone busily swaps messages and then it calms down as they realize they're talking past each other.
If you are running a very active list, I suggest making friends with your ISP and asking very nicely for permission to relay through their mail host. If you get the ok, then the loading on your line should be minimal.
--- eric
Eric S Johansson esj@inguide.com esj@harvee.billerica.ma.us This message was composed using NaturallySpeaking.
On Mon, Oct 04, 1999 at 07:29:50PM -0400, Eric S. Johansson wrote:
Interesting. I thought relaying via your ISP's mail host was practically compulsory for dialup accounts. I even know of ISPs for which I think that's the only way to send email. Does anyone know if this is a realistic view of the world, or am I sadly deluded by happening to have encountered a few unusual ISPs?
At 05:41 AM 10/5/1999 , Michael Stevens wrote:
as others have pointed out, there are an increasing number of ISPs that do block port 25 access to all machines except for their relays. Part of my business is Internet infrastructure consulting and I have a fairly major wholesale provider as one of my clients. They are learning firsthand just how bad "free" Internet access customers can be when it comes to spamming. They are in the process of locking down all of their pops and forcing everyone to relay through their mail servers.
This lock down of dial-up access is unfortunately very necessary but it really hurts small businesses/activists like myself that run servers at the end of a dial-up line. There is an unfortunate tendency in the industry to categorize services as either cheap dial-up accounts connected to a single "client only" PC or expensive leased line accounts for folks with a big budget. I'm finding it increasingly difficult to locate a middle tier of service supporting the intermittently connected server like I have here at Harvee. This middle tier of service is essential for the widespread adoption of thin server technology such as the whistle box and others.
hmmm. smells like a market opportunity is arising.
--- eric
Eric S Johansson esj@inguide.com esj@harvee.billerica.ma.us This message was composed using NaturallySpeaking.
On Tue, Oct 05, 1999 at 09:06:46AM -0400, Eric S. Johansson wrote:
Interesting. I suspect it's seen differently in the UK due to the non-availability of free local calls, making running servers off a dialup line expensive anyway. However, I do find there are ISPs such as Demon (www.demon.net) who seem willing to offer service useful for the slightly more advanced user.
What is a whistle box? I have visions of some ill defined object from the early part of this century, which seems to be unlikely to be what you are referring to.
On Tue, 5 Oct 1999, Michael Stevens wrote:
Not sure if you got an answer, but ...
It is a small custom-made firewall/router/{samba,ftp,web,mail}server suitable for small businesses. It is basically a FreeBSD box with custom bits & pieces (internal UPS for one).
It has provisions for ISDN, PSTN, LL and FR access. It's neat, and has no keyboard to speak of (a keypad from which you key in an enable code, and it grabs its configuration from your ISP), and you can play "pong" on the LCD display! :)
Check out http://www.whistle.com.
Tor Houghton
At 09:06 AM 10/5/99 -0400, you wrote:
This is not just a spam deterrent. It's also an easy way for the ISP's to add on mandatory tag line advertisements to their users' outbound email.
All you need to do is tell the local smtp client to connect to a non standard port on a remote server and mail relay is possible w/o the annoying ads. The other side would of course need to be running smtp service on that specific non standard port, but it's a trivial issue to do that.
Also, The Eudora email clients (at least the windows versions) have an undocumented feature which will allow you to SEND mail through the remote pop3 server once you have already authenticated yourself to it. The remote server must be running the qualcomm pop3 server, I believe. The unix version is free, and very popular in pop3 server land.
-- NAME: Christopher Schulte MAIL: christopher@schulte.org SITE: http://www.schulte.org/ FINGER(PGP): christopher@shell.schulte.org
"Everywhere I go I see your face. Every sound I hear is the sound of your voice. Why are you haunting me?" --Stabbing Westward Darkest Days
On Tue, 5 Oct 1999, Michael Stevens wrote:
My ISP ignored for over a year the fact that they allowed all relaying from anywhere. They changed that (when they put up a different server) but I don't see anything (technically or otherwise) that would keep customers from relaying. I agree with Michael's view that it is part of the Service that they Provide.
-- Jerry Adlersfluegel
"Michael" == Michael Stevens <mstevens@imaginet.co.uk> writes:
Michael> Interesting. I thought relaying via your ISP's mail host was Michael> practically compulsory for dialup accounts. I even know of Michael> ISPs for which I think that's the only way to send Michael> email. Does anyone know if this is a realistic view of the Michael> world, or am I sadly deluded by happening to have encountered Michael> a few unusual ISPs?
There are two answers here. In some cases, ISPs will block you from sending on port 25 to stop spammers from using their accounts. ISPs with free first months are common in this group. Other people subscribe to the DUL (dialup users lists) which allows them to filter out mail from dial-up users that don't forward through their ISP mail servers.
In general, if you can get yourself a static IP, you can probably send out your own mail, otherwise not.
Dave.
--
|David Gilbert, Velocet Communications. | Two things can only be | |Mail: dgilbert@velocet.net | equal if and only if they | |http://www.velocet.net/~dgilbert | are precisely opposite. | =========================================================GLO================
participants (7)
-
Brian Mulvaney -
Christopher Schulte -
David Gilbert -
Eric S. Johansson -
Jerry Adlersfluegel -
Michael Stevens -
Tor Houghton