[Mailman-Users] Re: [Mailman-Developers] Performance problems and MailMan

[Barry A. Warsaw]

>>>>> "TDDM" == The Dragon De Monsyne <dragondm at integral.org> writes:

    TDDM> 	Hmm... A few thoughts..  I've never seen the load
    TDDM> problem on my mailman site, even though I run several
    TDDM> reasonabally well trafficked lists, HOWEVER, I run a
    TDDM> slightly customized version of HyperArch.py which stil.l
    TDDM> uses bsddb for data storage.

    TDDM> Also, my site does not immedeately archive messages, it runs
    TDDM> an archiving cronjob every few hours.(it still dosen't draw
    TDDM> much cpu whence the cronjob kicks in, tho)

Both those differences (using bsddb and not archiving immediately)
explains why you wouldn't see the hit.  The bug (now fixed) was in the 
DumbBTree implementation.

    TDDM> 	really, this archiving system was never meant to be
    TDDM> used in the current method of operation (being invoked on
    TDDM> each incoming message), and it's design is probably rather
    TDDM> non-optimal for this use. It spends substantial time
    TDDM> building & tearing down & (un)pickling various structures
    TDDM> incurring a bit of overhead.

Wonderful understatement Dragon! :)

Running with the patches in the CVS tree, I think the current system
can work for a site as heavily trafficked as python.org, but it is
very inefficient.  Maybe we should document that for high traffic
sites, you might want to use an external archiver which only runs from
a cronjob.  Unfortunately, I haven't done this, so if anybody can
contribute a HOWTO, I'd appreciate it.

-Barry