[TriLUG] sendmail vs. postfix - was Re: stupid sendmail question?

[Ben Pitzer]

Well, 3-5 messages per second on average is heavy.  8 messages/sec seems a
bit outrageous, and I have my doubts as to how long any system could keep up
with that load.  And of course, it also depends on what anti-virus and/or
spam milter you're using (speaking of Sendmail, of course).  Some require
more resources than others, naturally, and some are more effective.  A
resource intensive, yet highly effective anti-virus milter might reduce the
standard for a heavy load to 1-2 messages per second, depending on your
hardware resources, etc.

This is a very subjective discussion, naturally.  Your 8 messages/sec is
interesting, but that's in a test situation, and would that stand up in real
world conditions, where interrupted connections can be frequent for inbound
mail, where immediate refusals occur maybe more than half of the time (say
for dynamic IP mail relays).  Additionally, what was the ratio of spam to
virus laden to clean emails in that test batch?  And how long did it keep
that load?  There are a lot of variables to keep in mind in any such claims.
Not that I'm discounting or disregarding your point, but everyone should
recognize that any claims of performance have a fairly vast number of
parameters to take into account, and there are almost infinite permutations
of such parameters, which makes comparisons tough to make effectively.

I'd like to hear of Postfix implementation and trials in situations similar
to my experience (broadband ISP, X number of mail accounts, Y number of
messages per day on average, and mail filtering, be it for spam or AV), but
that's going to be tough to come by, I know.

Regards,
Ben Pitzer

---------------------------------------------

"Those that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary
safety deserve neither liberty nor safety."
 --Ben Franklin--




> -----Original Message-----
> From: trilug-bounces at trilug.org [mailto:trilug-bounces at trilug.org]On
> Behalf Of Michael Alan Dorman
> Sent: Thursday, June 17, 2004 1:20 PM
> To: trilug at trilug.org
> Subject: Re: [TriLUG] sendmail vs. postfix - was Re: stupid sendmail
> question?
>
>
> "Ben Pitzer" <uncleben at mindspring.com> writes:
>
> > The fact is that none of us, to my knowledge, have ever tried to
> > scale Postfix to extreme levels, but I'd be interested to hear from
> > some party who has tried to do so.  Perhaps we could ask Weitse if
> > he knows of anyone who has tried, and what level of success they
> > have experienced.
>
> What are extreme levels?
>
> I run an anti-spam service, and we easily handle 2 messages/sec on
> $1700 systems that are doing the mail receiving, spam filtering, virus
> scanning, forwarding as well as storage and retrieval (through a web
> interface) of sidelined mail.
>
> I have, in test situations, pumped at least 8 messages/sec through
> less powerful systems.
>
> Are those considered extreme?
>
> Mike
> --
> Do you ever wonder about sound and vision -- David Bowie
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>