[Mailman-Users] Throttling output

[Steve Campbell]

I may have a need to throttle the output of a list which sends out about 
22,000 emails when called upon. I have tried the milter-limit from Snert, 
and it seems to work, but since this is designed mostly for incoming-limits 
as opposed to outgoing, I'm not sure what the consequences are for Mailman.

I have run a test on this to verify some sense of proof-of-concept, but only 
a mild test, before questions starting being raised. I have taken the 
questions as far as possible with the milter-limit pros, and now need to 
confirm how Mailman might be handling this.

The scenario is like this: I set an output limit for the Mailman user 
through the milter (messages/time limit). I then send an announcement to the 
large-member list to be distributed. Mainman generates the outgoing email, 
and the milter takes over and throttles the output based on the 
messages/time limit setting. A lot of this depends on how Mailman generates 
the outgoing email and how it will respond to the temporary failures for 
retry.

This works on the very simple test of setting 2 messages per 10 minutes, and 
having sent 3 separate emails. The throttle worked (minus Mailman output). 
But what will Mailman do when I send to 20,000 and the milter starts 
temp-failing after the limit is reached? Does it see these as bounces? Will 
it insert the pending emails into the sendmail queue or fail?

Does anyone have a suggestion for throttling?

Thanks for anything offered.


Steve Campbell
campbell at cnpapers.com
Charleston Newspapers