[Mailman-Users] Delay in mailman passing messages

[Spencer Yost]

Every since switching to mailman, I have been vexed by a performance
problem.   Originally, I thought it was my old server.   It was getting
long in the tooth and in the need of retiring.  Last month I replaced it
and got my lists up and running with no problem on the new server.
However, my problem did not go away.    

Specifically my problem is there is a delay of anywhere from 15 minutes to
several hours in Mailman's processing of a message.   Mail receives the
message but then takes a long time passing it to sendmail.  I am not
talking about delivery time   -  That can take an additional 5 hours but is
a different issue.   I am talking about the time it takes for Mailman to
process the message.  After my signature are "Received:" lines from example
messages.

A couple of notes and/or important info:

1.I have tried the "Run a sendmail receiver just for Mailman" suggestion
found in the FAQs.   Nothing changes in the delay.

2.Have tried running multiple copies(4 qrunners) of the qrunners.  No
change.

3.Virtually no change in behavior in the delay between a 450 MHZ server
running 6.1 Linux with 1 meg memory to 3 GHZ server running 9.0 Linux with
1 meg memory.

4.Nothing out of the ordinary about the messages with the longest delays as
best I can tell.   They come form all over the globe from all kinds of
email systems and encompass all types of emails.  There are no errors in
the error logs.

5.No messages or clues in any of the logs for that matter.   They just read
like everything is a pretty day in the park

6.A total of 8 lists that are small:  Biggest is 500 subscribers with 30-50
messages a day

7.The messages are scanned for viruses and SPAM but according to maillog
that takes only a second or two and then the message is passed to mailman.

Spencer Yost
Owner, ATIS
Plow the Net!
http://www.atis.net



Here are the examples.   YOST is my PC, heavyiron.atis.net is the server
that runs mailman and is the sendmail host and the priority 1 mx host for
the domain

Pretty quick example(about 25 minutes)
===============================

Received: from heavyiron.atis.net (localhost [127.0.0.1])	by
heavyiron.atis.net (8.13.0/8.13.0) with ESMTP id i6JFwMQ7009466;	Mon, 19
Jul 2004 11:58:22 -0400
Received: from YOST ([192.168.2.203])	by heavyiron.atis.net (8.13.0/8.13.0)
with ESMTP id i6JFYF00003667;	Mon, 19 Jul 2004 11:34:15 -0400

A Slow message(6 hours)
======================

Received: from heavyiron.atis.net (localhost [127.0.0.1])	by
heavyiron.atis.net (8.13.0/8.13.0) with ESMTP id i6JA0ZGJ005199;	Mon, 19
Jul 2004 06:00:35 -0400
Received: from YOST ([192.168.2.203])	by heavyiron.atis.net (8.13.0/8.13.0)
with ESMTP id i6J3r2Lf026350	for <at at lists.antique-tractor.com>; Sun, 18
Jul 2004 23:53:02 -0400