Re: List Server resource requirements

[Aumont - Comite Reseaux des Universites]

> Hi,
> 
> I am looking for information on the resource requirements for various list
> managers.  I am interested in what is needed for a fairly high volume list
> server in terms of hardware and operating system.  What I would really like
> is to see comparisons of through-put, machine cycles, disk requirements and
> general operating schemes for the software itself.
> 
> I would really like to see things along the lines of "X" list server can
> process "Y" number of 8K messages per hour using "Z" percent of the
> available machine cycles on a 300MHZ machine.  It needs "A" megabytes of
> disk space to do this and requires "B" megabytes of main memory.  This,
> rather than "M" list server really flys on a 300MHZ machine!
We are using sympa (http://listes.cru.fr/sympa/). 

On Bi PII-300mz with 256K ram (linux) we need 6 minutes to distribute
a mail of 20Ko to 17 K-subscribers. Sympa is tunned to limit its
own performences so network and computer remain availible evjen during
big distribution process.
Sympa containt a quite sophisticated set of parameters : 
 -maximum number of smtp process
 -maximum number of recepients per process
 -maximun number of different domains for each process
 -sort order for e-mail
 -priority order between lists
 - etc

  
We probably can tune sympa for better performence with the same
machine but we are limited by our poor network connection. Sympa's
author says that we can  improve by a 10 factor sympa performence using
Postfix insteed of sendmail :-)

Serge Aumont

PS : you can look at http://www.cru.fr/listes/apropos/robots.html
     this is a list of robots