[Mailman-Users] Large lists and Postfix

[Greg Stein]

bruce at hams.com wrote:
> 
> From: Dave Sill <ds-list-mailman at sws5.ctd.ornl.gov>
> > I agree that mailman's web interface is excellent. And given the
> > choice between an MLM with an e-mail only interface, and one with a
> > good web interface, too, I'd usually prefer the latter. Unfortunately,
> > it's not always practical for the list server to be co-located with a
> > web server.
> 
> You have a point, but I think the best way to deal with this would be to
> have Mailman become able to make use of a _remote_MDA_. The admin forms
> could simply ask what host to use as the SMTP server for each list. That
> would distribute the entire load of list delivery onto one or more
> separate MDA hosts, leaving the server upon which Mailman resides with the
> load of WWW service, bounce processing, and list management. The actual
> subscriber lists should be on the same machine that performs web service,
> so that web subscription management will work interactively. Mail delivery
> can take place elsewhere. This leaves you with the task of hosting a
> virtual domain for list reception and a web server on the same machine,
> not much in terms of load but still possibly a pain to get through the
> administration of your company. Note however that any unprivileged 486
> that you sit on the outside of your firewall would be equal to the task.

There is an "SMTPHOST" configuration option. That would allow you to
shove your outbound delivery over to another machine.

The webserver still needs to run an MTA for incoming mail.

In my setup, I have a mail machine (ns1) and mailing-list machine
(cartman). Inbound mail is forwarded from ns1 over to cartman. cartman
delivers outbound mail, but I could reconfig the system to point at ns1
for outbound.

Note that this doesn't entirely meet Dave's requirement, though: you
still have a web server on the same box as the MLM. This just shoves
mail delivery elsewhere.

Cheers,
-g

--
Greg Stein, http://www.lyra.org/