[Mailman-Users] Limiting the number of Mailman processes

[Brad Knowles]

At 8:24 AM +0200 2006-05-06, Amardeo Sarma wrote:

>  with some UNIX FreeBSD VPS versions, I have had problems with mail
>  delivery for moderately large lists (~300). Apparently the problem is
>  that the maximum number of processes for some systems are limited (e.g.
>  to 75). Is there any Mailman setting that can limit the maximum number
>  of processes that Mailman can spawn in parallel to allow large lists to
>  be used on systems with a limited maximum number of processes?

	Mailman will itself only spawn a limited number of queue runner 
processes.  I suspect that your problem is that the MTA will accept 
these messages as quickly as Mailman can send them, and then spawn 
off multiple simultaneous processes to handle the delivery.

	This basically gets back to the same issue detailed in FAQ 4.51 
at 
<http://www.python.org/cgi-bin/faqw-mm.py?req=show&file=faq04.051.htp>.


	You may be able to talk to your provider and get some assistance 
from them as to how you can limit the number of processes that your 
MTA will spawn, but in almost all cases there are a relatively fixed 
number of Mailman-related processes that will be running at any one 
time, and that number doesn't change with regards to how much traffic 
is being handled -- if there's no work for them to do, then they will 
sleep until there is.

	Occasionally, you'll get the odd Mailman-related cron job that 
will fire off, but that's about the only circumstance I can think of 
where additional Mailman-related processes will be spawned.

-- 
Brad Knowles, <brad at stop.mail-abuse.org>

"Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little
temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety."

     -- Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790), reply of the Pennsylvania
     Assembly to the Governor, November 11, 1755

  LOPSA member since December 2005.  See <http://www.lopsa.org/>.