Load testing a mailman server
Hi there,
we are considering deploying a mailman mailing list server.
I want to ensure that its fairly lean and that it also performs adequately.
So I'd like to do some load testing on it to measure its performance.
I'm wondering if anyone can provide any ideas, insights or warnings with respect to this sort of thing?
Thanks!
-- Please remember that an email is just like a postcard; it is not confidential nor private nor secure and can be read by many other people than the intended recipient. A postcard can be read by anyone at the mail sorting office and expecting what is written on it to be private and secret is not realistic. Please hold no higher expectation of email.
If you need to send confidential information in an email you need to use encryption. PGP is Pretty good for this.
On Thu, 6 Aug 2009, Steve Wray wrote:
Load testing is a very simple and staright forward manner, however, I would question the need for it unless you are dealing with lists of unusual size or settings (VERP comes to mind). More data from you would help.
//Alif
-- Yours, J.A. Terranson sysadmin_at_mfn.org 0xpgp_key_mgmt_is_broken-dont_bother
"Never belong to any party, always oppose privileged classes and public plunderers, never lack sympathy with the poor, always remain devoted to the public welfare, never be satisfied with merely printing news, always be drastically independent, never be afraid to attack wrong, whether by predatory plutocracy or predatory poverty."
Joseph Pulitzer 1907 Speech
08/06/2009 06:29 AM, Steve Wray:
I'm wondering if anyone can provide any ideas, insights or warnings with respect to this sort of thing?
I think you should firts enquire the debian and python mailing list managers. They could give you some statistics (CPU usage, Network used, what hardware,...)
-- Architecte Informatique: Administration Systeme, Recherche & Developpement + 261 32 11 401 65 Pensez a l'environnement avant d'imprimer ce message
on 8/7/09 12:48 AM, Rakotomandimby Mihamina said:
We've got some information in FAQ 1.15 at <http://wiki.list.org/x/NoA9> with regards to the largest lists that can be run with Mailman, but that doesn't directly address the issue of tools to do actual load testing.
Myself, I tend to use the "smtpsource" and "smtpsink" tools that Wietse Venema created (available as part of the standard postfix source installation, although perhaps not included with binary package versions from other sources), along with the "postal" tools written by Russ Coker (see <http://doc.coker.com.au/projects/postal/>).
If you're going to be doing any benchmarking or load-testing, make sure you read, understand, and follow all the various relevant FAQs in the Mailman FAQ Wiki, especially in section 6.
-- Brad Knowles <brad@shub-internet.org> LinkedIn Profile: <http://tinyurl.com/y8kpxu>
Steve Wray wrote:
There is a script in the distribution - tests/fblast.py
It doesn't produce a report, but you can use it to bombard a list with mail and then watch what happens to your system. See the docstring at the beginning of the file for more info.
-- Mark Sapiro <mark@msapiro.net> The highway is for gamblers, San Francisco Bay Area, California better use your sense - B. Dylan
On Thu, 6 Aug 2009, Steve Wray wrote:
Load testing is a very simple and staright forward manner, however, I would question the need for it unless you are dealing with lists of unusual size or settings (VERP comes to mind). More data from you would help.
//Alif
-- Yours, J.A. Terranson sysadmin_at_mfn.org 0xpgp_key_mgmt_is_broken-dont_bother
"Never belong to any party, always oppose privileged classes and public plunderers, never lack sympathy with the poor, always remain devoted to the public welfare, never be satisfied with merely printing news, always be drastically independent, never be afraid to attack wrong, whether by predatory plutocracy or predatory poverty."
Joseph Pulitzer 1907 Speech
08/06/2009 06:29 AM, Steve Wray:
I'm wondering if anyone can provide any ideas, insights or warnings with respect to this sort of thing?
I think you should firts enquire the debian and python mailing list managers. They could give you some statistics (CPU usage, Network used, what hardware,...)
-- Architecte Informatique: Administration Systeme, Recherche & Developpement + 261 32 11 401 65 Pensez a l'environnement avant d'imprimer ce message
on 8/7/09 12:48 AM, Rakotomandimby Mihamina said:
We've got some information in FAQ 1.15 at <http://wiki.list.org/x/NoA9> with regards to the largest lists that can be run with Mailman, but that doesn't directly address the issue of tools to do actual load testing.
Myself, I tend to use the "smtpsource" and "smtpsink" tools that Wietse Venema created (available as part of the standard postfix source installation, although perhaps not included with binary package versions from other sources), along with the "postal" tools written by Russ Coker (see <http://doc.coker.com.au/projects/postal/>).
If you're going to be doing any benchmarking or load-testing, make sure you read, understand, and follow all the various relevant FAQs in the Mailman FAQ Wiki, especially in section 6.
-- Brad Knowles <brad@shub-internet.org> LinkedIn Profile: <http://tinyurl.com/y8kpxu>
Steve Wray wrote:
There is a script in the distribution - tests/fblast.py
It doesn't produce a report, but you can use it to bombard a list with mail and then watch what happens to your system. See the docstring at the beginning of the file for more info.
-- Mark Sapiro <mark@msapiro.net> The highway is for gamblers, San Francisco Bay Area, California better use your sense - B. Dylan
participants (5)
-
Brad Knowles -
J.A. Terranson -
Mark Sapiro -
Rakotomandimby Mihamina -
Steve Wray