[Mailman-Users] optimizing mail delivery

[J C Lawrence]

On Wed, 17 Nov 1999 15:52:22 -0500 
Paul Tomblin <ptomblin at xcski.com> wrote:

> Quoting J C Lawrence (claw at cp.net):

>> Your case which you report above is that of a single message with
>> a large number of RCPT TOs to the same domain.  There is no
>> wonder in that message being delivered to the target MX in a
>> single transaction.  

> You're right, sendmail only does the optimization within a single
> message, not across all the messages in the queue.  

>nod>

> I've been thinking about another MTA, but qmail means dealing with
> Dan B, which I'd rather not do because he's a horrendous jerk in
> any newsgroup that dares mention qmail in an uncomplimentary
> way...

I have similar reservation on Dan Bernstein.  While I've been
impressed with the thru-puts that QMail can accomplish (CP here uses 
a QMail derivative), due to Dan's behaviour it is not one I freely
recommend.

> ... and my only exposure to exim was being yelled at by an admin
> at an ISP who had configured his version of exim in a way that was
> specifically prohibited by RFC822 and refused to fix it because it
> "stopped spam" (at the expense of stopping a great deal of
> legitimate mail, including my mailing list).  

The behaviour of a single admin hardly reflect on the MTA entire.  I
like Exim.  Phillip Hazel (the author) is responsive and active on
the mailing list that supports it.  The config files are human
readable and easy to understand.  The admin controls and logging are
well developed.  Performance is good and often similar to QMail and
Postfix.  And best of all: I don't need a Bat Book.

> Is Postfix any better?

Postfix is impressive.  I've been archiving the Postfix lists at
Kanga.Nu for a while now, but don't run the MTA myself yet (happy
with Exim and more more important fish to fry than an MTA change).
I have a number of friends, some running large sites and large mail
loads, that are happily running Postfix.  I'm encouraged by the
traffic I see on the lists and by Vietse's behaviour on the lists
(especially compared to Dan B).

-- 
J C Lawrence                              Internet: claw at kanga.nu
----------(*)                            Internet: coder at kanga.nu
...Honorary Member of Clan McFud -- Teamer's Avenging Monolith...