Marc Slemko <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>
>...Please give me an example of how to set it up so that a
>remote site can open as many connections as it wants (which you think it
>should be able to do) without monopolizing the system.
I don't care if a remote site uses all available SMTP connections if:
o it doesn't "hog" connections, and
o it's not sending spam.
qmail doesn't hog connections because it only sends one message per
connection.
Spam is a separate problem with, IMHO, no technical solution.
>On top of that, you are still completely ignore the fact that hammering
>each remote host as hard as possible, in turn, results in taking a lot
>longer to deliver all the mail than if you nicely avoid hammering each
>host.
Only if the remote host accepts too many connections. Senders can
"hammer" my qmails all they want: I've pre-throttled them to a level
they can sustain. It's only common sense. Arguments like "we never had
to configure our MTA's intelligently before, so if they break now it's
your fault" just don't work.
>Part of this is due to qmail's silly 256 concurrencyremote limit,
>which makes connections from the sender a very valuable commodity when
>trying to send a lot of mail.
I find it very hard to hit that "silly" limit, even on my busiest,
fastest server. I don't see how raising the limit would help
dramatically. And I'd expect Chicken Little's to raise a big stink
about qmails capable of opening thousands of simultanenous
connections. Nonetheless, hardware's getting faster and I expect qmail
2.0 will raise this limit.
>Then do you really think it is appropriate for one remote system to
>monopolize your mailer for no reason?
No reason? No. For the reason of sending me mail? Yes.
>I consider that abusive. You can
>go on about "oh, there is really no way to know what you can do so you
>just have to try to blast as much as you can" but that ignores the basic
>principles that have worked behind all internet services for a heck of a
>long time: just because you _can_ do something, doesn't mean you should do
>it if it isn't a friendly thing to do.
Hey, this isn't your father's Internet. Sendmail-like performance just
doesn't cut it. Poorly managed services/servers are likely to
drown. It may not be "nice" or "friendly", but my nice, friendly users
aren't infinitely patient: they want their mail delivered *now*.
>> No, but my tcpserver connection limit is sufficiently conservative
>> that it can almost always handle a full compliment of SMTP clients. If
>> it can't, so what? Chances are, a few too many SMTP connections when
>> the system is hosed are the least of my worries.
>
>"if I can't accept any mail from any other systems because one system
>decided to flood me with a huge amount just beacuse it thought it would be
>cool to schedule deliveries that way, then it isn't a big deal"
>
>Erm... I don't think that way.
I do.
>My claim is that qmail's behaviour ranges from extremely unfriendly to
>abusive. It is easy to end up with addresses sorted by hostname for a
>variety of reasons.
And very easy to prevent it, if it's a problem.
>It is a flaw in qmail that, if the address list is
>sorted in such a way, it takes ~twice as long, in my experience, to send
>out a large quantity of mail.
No complex system can be optimal at all times. In my experience, this
"flaw" just isn't a problem.
>> Of course not. What's your point? 256 is << 500000. If I've got 500000
>> different messages to deliver to a single site, I sure as hell want to
>> use as many simultaneous connections as I can. I assume the receiving
>
>You just said that, if qmail didn't have an arbitrary 256 simultaneous
>connection limit and if your machine could handle it, then you consider it
>perfectly acceptable to try to open 500000 simultaneous connections.
No I didn't. I said there's a big difference between 256 and
500000. Even with "well behaved" MTA's, a busy server today can expect
on the order of 256 connections from various hosts, so if my qmail
server should happen to get them all, the server shouldn't be
swamped. However, the busiest, most capable SMTP server in existence
couldn't handle 500000 connections, so I consider it unreasonable to
attempt that many. Ultimately, though, if my server accepts that many
connections, it's my responsibility to see that it can cope.
>> site will behave responsibly and only accept as many as it can handle.
>> If the don't, that's their problem.
>
>That sums up the problems with your attitude quite nicely, and the
>problems with far too many "qmail idealists" that are more concernend
>about proclaiming qmail to be the greatest thing on earth than about
>actually running functional and interoperable mail systems.
>
>It is obvious that you aren't interested in real life problems or actually
>using qmail in real life, but only on insisting that qmail is flawless, so
>there isn't too much point in continuing this discussion.
You're obviously wrong, though, because I use qmail daily, and have
for years, to deliver high volumes of mail to servers around the world
with concurrencyremote of up to 240. And--I've NEVER received a SINGLE
complaint from a remote site.
Put that in your "real life" pipe and smoke it.
-Dave
