[Mailman-Users] Mailer

Richard Ellerbrock richarde at eskom.co.za
Wed Dec 1 07:55:50 CET 1999


>On Tue, 30 Nov 1999 15:45:45 -0700 
>Kory Wheatley <wheakory at isu.edu> wrote:
>
>> What is the best Mailer agent to use with Mailman. Right now I am
>> using sendmail and it seems to be fine.  
>
>Sendmail works, but does not perform well.  It is a very
>(unnecessarily) complex piece of software which has a long history
>of security problem which encourage me to avoid it.  Other possible
>choices for an MTA enclude Exim, Postfix, and QMail.

I have been lurking and listening to this advocacy debate for a while now and have stayed clear of the debate up till now.

Just some hard facts to set the record straight:

I run around 150000 e-mail messages a day through a single mail spool machine. This machine is configured with 3 virtual interfaces (each running a different configuration). I handle around 15 domains on this machine. Spam filters and blackhole lists are configured to the max. At any one time there are around 300 mail processes on this machine with the machine never going under 95% idle!

Another machine (P133!) handles all my mailing lists on mailman. This machine has around 30 lists, with around 10 with over 3000 members each. Many of the lists are automagically generated each evening using sync_members from our HR database system.

I have never had a performance problem or a security violation in the last 5 years this setup has been running. It also never falls over and never needs maintenance.

BTW, it is all running on sendmail 8.9.3

I have looked at the other offerings and have not found any other mailer that even comes close to what sendmail can do for you. My suggestion to those that moan about complexity is to stay away from UNIX and go to NT. Also, it must be noted that every UNIX that I have ever worked with comes standard with sendmail, so you are bound to discover security problems if 90% of the mailers run your software. The others are just lucky as their mailers only have a small number of users compared to sendmail.

My 2c worth, and no mail will be answered. Thanks.


--
Richard Ellerbrock
richarde at eskom.co.za





More information about the Mailman-Users mailing list