[Mailman-Users] split into fewer recipients

[Jon Carnes]

On Tue, 2003-04-29 at 13:41, Chris Bauer wrote:
> Hello all,
> 
> I am trying to find a way to reduce the number of recipients in the
> messages that mailman sends out. The background info for this is we have
> an institutional wide list here with roughly 3000 subscribers. When
> messages are being sent out, our mail gateway is getting backed up
> processing these messages. Our gateway admin is of the opinion that if
> this was split up into more messages, more threads could be used (since
> each message inboud is supposed to be processed by a thread) and this
> would help with the problem.
> 
> So, is there a way I can split this up into more messages with fewer
> recipients per message? If not through the mailman config, possibly
> through the sendmail config?
> 
> Thanks in advance,
> -Chris
> 
Hmmm, I doubt that will help.

Here is a message from the archives that talks about optimizing Sendmail
and Mailman's interactions with Sendmail.  This should help...

====== Message from archives ======

This is the one big problem with running a non-optimized MTA and is the
reason I (and so many others) moved over to Postfix.

Try setting SMTP_MAX_RCPTS = 5 in the ~mailman/Mailman/mm_cfg.py file

===
   # Ceiling on the number of recipients that
   # can be specified in a single SMTP
   # transaction.  Set to 0 to submit the
   # entire recipient list in one
   # transaction.  Only used with the SMTPDirect
   # DELIVERY_MODULE.
   # SMTP_MAX_RCPTS = 500
   SMTP_MAX_RCPTS = 5
===

I have advocated this setting for Sendmail folks for a long time now.
Let us know if it works for you!

Jon Carnes

BTW, there is a timing section in your Sendmail.cf file.  You can adjust
the various time-outs used by Sendmail in this section (be sure to
backup your sendmail.cf file first!).  Before I moved my systems over to
Postfix, I used to tweak these settings to get the maximum performance
out of Sendmail.

Here are some settings that might be of interest to you:

  O Timeout.iconnect=5m
  # It waits 5 minutes for the initial connect!!!
  # Definitely change this. Try something like 5 seconds
  # If it fails the initial connect it moves the host to
  # the end of queue, then users the more generic
  # "Timeout.connect" value.
     O Timeout.iconnect=5s

  O Timeout.helo=5m
  # It waits 5 minutes before giving up on a "helo"!!!
  # Even if the host is doing a DNS/RBL look up on you,
  # it shouldn't take 5 minutes (though the RFC calls
  # for 5 minutes here)
  
  O Timeout.mail=10m
  # It waits 10 minutes before giving up on passing off a email!!!
  # The RFC minimum is 5 minutes for this.  I think even that is
  # too long
 
Remember to stop and restart Sendmail if you make a change to
/etc/sendmail.cf (or /etc/mail/sendmail.cf).

Here is a web-page with more info on the Sendmail.cf file:
  http://www.trilug.org/~jonc/mailserver/PartIII.html

I wrote this for a class I teach on setting up Mail-services for 
corporate or personal use. 

====== End of archived message ======

Also, depending on your corporate network layout, you may wish to run
your lists on a separate mail gateway - that is the way that I normally
setup Mailing lists for corporations.

HtH - Jon Carnes