On Thu, Sep 26, 2002 at 02:44:12PM +0100, Jim Morrison [Mailinglists] wrote: > Sorry.. > This is completely off topic.. but I have a question you guys might help > me with.. > > > I'm writing then next part of a big modperl project I'm doing.. This bit > could be loosely called a mailing-list-server.. > > The listserver is going to handle out-going (only'ish) opt-in mailing > lists. The opting-in bit is all bound into the rest of the project, as > is the construction of the outgoing email, and the list management...
I endorse qmail + ezmlm for mailing list management. There are many tales of qmail being faster than sendmail, with respect to enqueuing and remotely delivering mail. And, ezmlm (a qmail-aware mailing list manager) readily handles issues like bounce management, etc. > I'm wondering if there is any point in looking for a piece of third > party software/module etc, that will handle the sending of the mail or > should I work directly with sendmail? (Is sendmail the best mailserver > for this kind of thing?) Qmail does provide an interface called 'sendmail', so it would drop in, without a hitch. Qmail, hoever, does have a lower-level mechanism for injecting mail into the local queue, called 'qmail-inject'; even more efficient. > I'd be happy to write something along the line of formail.pl on my own, > so I kinda know what I'm doing, but I'm gonna have to take things like > "Return to sender" errors and such into account.. Hit Google. People have written plenty of webbish front-ends to the qmail universe (as well as other MTAs). > My question I guess is: > - Is it ok to send 100's or 1000's of mails to sendmail in one go, or > is there a better way of doing bulk mail? If the email messages are identical (ie., not customized for each recipient), then a bulk inject via qmail-inject is the way to go; you can easily inject _many_ thousands of messages in one go. Even better: just treat your list of subscibers as an ezmlm mailing list; all your code has to do is 'send this message to list'. You don't have to do any work at all; ezmlm will even manage bounces for you, and unsubscribe people. > - Are there any mods to help with dealing with returned mail etc..? For this reason, among many others, I use qmail instead of sendmail for automated mail generation + handling, so that I can take advantage of the VERP feature. Essentially, it's a way of crafting the sender part of the envelope to redundtanly contain the recipient part, such that when your server receives a bounce, it 'knows' who it was sent to. Saves you the pain of parsing the myriad non-standard bounce message formats out there. See: http://cr.yp.to/proto/verp.txt > - Is there a good list of people doing this sort of thing? (Or do you > mind the thread being a little off-topic!) This whole issue isn't about a web server; it's about how to generate automated mail, and to manage returned messages programmtically. It sounds like the conversation should happen on a mailing list for your MTA of choice. (sendmail, qmail, postfix, etc.) So, start looking here: http://www.ezmlm.org/ This will explain tons of features of ezmlm. If it wins you over, go here for qmail itself: http://www.qmail.org/ > I don't think I'm trying to reinvent the wheel.. Just that I think there > is so much of my own coding involved, I'm not sure if I'm going to be > able to get away with anything less than writing it from scratch.. Offload all of your mail-handling onto a MLM/MUA combo you trust. Don't reinvent _that_ wheel. > Would be greatful for any advice, Good luck. > Kindest, > Jimbo -- Brian 'you Bastard' Reichert <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> 37 Crystal Ave. #303 Daytime number: (603) 434-6842 Derry NH 03038-1713 USA Intel architecture: the left-hand path
