[Mailman-Users] few questions

[Dan Wilder]

On Sat, Oct 06, 2001 at 02:07:52PM -0700, Deepak K wrote:
> Dear All,
>         
>         I am a newbie to mailman. I have configured
> mailman
> version 2.0.6 in a RedHat 7.0 machine. I am quite
> satisfied by the intial results. However, i have 
> following questions
> 
> a) Can i have 30 to 40 different mailing list on a
> single machine. I have exclusively reserved a machine
> for this. the hardware configuration of the machine is
> PIII , 800 MHZ, 128 MB Ram. whether it is advisable to
> have 30 to 40 different mailing list having atleast 30
> members in each list in a single machine. if no,
> please tell me how to proceed in this case by giving
> the changes or tuning i have to do in terms of the
> hardware and software configuration. I have around 100
> email transactions per day in each mailing list.
> whether mailman performance will get affected or will
> it become slow if i have 30 to 40 mailing list on a
> single machine and have 100 email transactions per day
> thru each mailing list.

Lessee, that's 4,000 emails/day.

A friend used to handle 70,000 emails/day on a 75 mHz
Pentium, which served as a hub for several organizations.   

We have several lists, the largest of which is 20,000 
members but which gets only about one post a week, running 
under Mailman on an AMD K6-350 with 128M RAM.  The MTA is 
Postfix, tuned for large peak volumes.  With 150 SMTP 
processes, it handles the bulk of the 20,000 member delivery 
within perhaps three or four hours of submittal time.  
The machine never really raises a sweat.  It does choke up 
the SDSL line the mail goes out through!

I'd think a 486-66 with adequate RAM would be more than
enough to handle the load you mention.

-- 
-----------------------------------------------------------------
 Dan Wilder <dan at ssc.com>   Technical Manager & Editor
 SSC, Inc. P.O. Box 55549   Phone:  206-782-8808
 Seattle, WA  98155-0549    URL http://embedded.linuxjournal.com/
-----------------------------------------------------------------