From eidson@unix4.is.tcu.edu Tue Mar 3 19:44:39 1998 Return-Path: eidson@unix4.is.tcu.edu Received: from unix4.is.tcu.edu (UNIX4.IS.TCU.EDU [138.237.128.140]) by cap1.CapAccess.org (8.6.12/8.6.10) with SMTP id TAA26320 for ; Tue, 3 Mar 1998 19:44:39 -0500 Received: by unix4.is.tcu.edu; id AA12301; Tue, 3 Mar 1998 18:37:04 -0600 Received: by unix3.is.tcu.edu (5.65v4.0/1.1.10.5/31Jan97-0109PM) id AA06725; Tue, 3 Mar 1998 18:37:00 -0600 Date: Tue, 3 Mar 1998 18:36:59 -0600 (CST) From: Jon Eidson To: Ben Parker Cc: Nathan Brindle , Hendra , Mike Bowman Subject: Re: Arrow-L mail routing question... 8-) In-Reply-To: <35157fa5.719590997@gw.besteffort.com> Message-Id: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Status: RO X-Status: On Mon, 2 Mar 1998, Ben Parker wrote: > Judging by the following headers, all mail coming to me (and an > undetermined other amount of people) is being routed from VM to unix, with > a noticed time delay of 1.5-7.5 hours. I am NOT complaining, but I just > want to understand if this is correct. I know of other people on Arrow-L > who receive their arrow-l mail direct, via TCUAVM (which seems to have a > SMTP outbound). This includes any responses I receive to any command msgs. > Initially (after your change-over) I would get msgs via TCUAVM (and I do > still get errors-to notices via that route) but all else seems to come only > via 'VM2unix'... Just curious. 8-) > > Also, I have off-loaded all arrow-l DIGEST subscriptions to another 'echo' > server to reduce the load on TCU. > > Is there any contemplation of you getting an updated LISTSERV license? I > understand there is a lot of politics involved... 8-( Respond if you > can... Ben Parker. Hi Ben (and others) ... I guess you've noticed the addition of the unix headers in email to all the ".COM" sites. Basically here is the scoop. I have email being delivered using 4 machines. Our 2 IBM machines TCUBVM and TCUAVM, one of our VAX machines TCUAVMS and my unix workstations (unix3/unix4). The email software on TCUBVM (listserv host) allows me to route internet email via domains. The following is a list of which machine handles what traffic: TCUBVM .edu .net .mil TCUAVM .tcu.edu .org macscouter.com best.com penn.com TCUAVMS .gov .us aol.com (and all others) unix .com The design is such to accellerate local traffic (ie TCU.EDU) and my listowner helpers (Macscouters, etc. :) Also TCUAVM is our production IBM machine and I need to keep the load under control. When I tested a larger load it bogged down performance for our users and I got my hand slapped :) TCUAVMS is our network machine and is an older vax (not alpha) machine. It too bogged down when I routed too much of a load. To be honest, TCUBVM can get pretty bogged down at times as well. I'm considering move some more traffic off to the unix side. The way the unix traffic works is that the email is deliverd to a dummy userid on TCUAVM. A task wakes up about every 2 hours and receives any waiting email and ftp's the email to a queue on a dummy account on my unix workstation. I then have a task that wakes up every hour on my unix machine that then breaks the email into individual messages (ie one per user) and calls sendmail to deliver it. I have a 1 second wait between each delivery to keep from overrunning the unix mailers. The first week of all this, I was running the unix transfer procedures by hand which could account for the delays. Now that things are automated the delays should not be as great. Interesting to note that the unix systems are delivering over 20,000 emails per day. With the 1 second delay my machine seems to be constantly delivering messages ... causing some delays as well. As to the load on unix, this has not been a problem yet. I do intend to look at some alternative email delivery for my unix systems such as qmail and/or sendmail 8.8.8. As to long term, TCUBVM will be going away ... probably late summer or early fall. Our budget year does not begin until June so that is when things can start. Our options are to purchase listserv for NT (about a $10k price tag) or move to shareware version of listproc on unix. I was asked to produce some stats on TCUs listserv and hear they are: lists: 75 TCU subscribers: 1,001 Non-tcu subscribers: 6,307 Approx deliveries / day: 50-60,000 (some days as large as 85k) Scouts-l and Arrow-l account for about 3,000 subscribers or about 1/2 our listserv subscriber base. My boss did notice :( His biggest concern is that it does not occupy too much of my time or TCU resources. Guess thats it for now. Later, Jon. ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Jon Eidson (J.Eidson@tcu.edu) Information Services Senior Systems Programmer Texas Christian University (817) 257-6835 Fort Worth, Texas 76129 ----------------------------------------------------------------------- If at first you don't succeed, skydiving is not for you!