David, Is your customer sending those emails using a mailing list, or by using a bulk-mailer program? I would think that by using the mailing list feature, you could at least eliminate the time that it takes the customer to transmit that quantity of mail to the server for distribution.
I've got several customers who send large batches (500-1000) of email through our toaster, but I haven't experienced any slowdowns of the magnitude that you're describing. The times that I have experienced slowdowns when sending mail, have all been attributed to slow DNS responses. If the DNS server(s, hopefully) you're using are being overtaxed, you may want to install a caching resolving nameserver on your toaster, and set 127.0.0.1 (or 0.0.0.0) as the primary nameserver in your /etc/resolv.conf. Another of my customers uses a bulk-mailer program to deliver messages to >50,000 recipients. For them, I built up a SMTP gateway server (on a VM, no less), which provides spam and virus scanning, as is "required", if you ever get listed on SORBS, like our primary SMTP gateway did. I use MailScanner (http://www.mailscanner.info) to scan for outbound spam and virii. It took me less than an hour to install the OS and configure the scanner, and it works with sendmail (by default), Exim, Postfix, Zmailer, and even (recently) Qmail. To more directly answer your question (although, I think you might want to try the local nameserver fix first), there's a file /var/qmail/control/concurrencyremote that indicates how many maximum remote handlers qmail should attempt to use. I have mine set to 60, although the default is 20. 'man qmail-control' will tell you (a little) more about that. If a 'tail -f /var/log/qmail/send/current' consistently shows that 20/20 remote handlers are in use (you'll see something like: @40000000459aee3a39df5c6c status: local 0/10 remote 7/60), you may want to investigate increasing the number in that file. In my example, 7 of 60 handlers are in use. Restart qmail after making changes to anything in the /var/qmail/control directory. Sincerely, -- Joseph Lundgren Systems Engineer Peak Internet, LLC [EMAIL PROTECTED] -----Original Message----- From: David Milholen [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Tuesday, January 02, 2007 5:37 AM To: [email protected] Subject: [qmailtoaster] large server patch Hey guys, I have grown from a small wisp to a medium size in just a year and projecting twice as many in 07'. I only have the one qmail server. I have a customer that sends out a batch at least once a week with approx 6000 msgs. I need some insight on opening up concurrency or some other aspect that will get these msgs out of my network to where they should go. The mail q stays behind when he launches this batch. Usually takes about 32hrs for all of them to go. I currently have 9Mb pipe to the world. HElp! -- Wireless Etc David Milholen Lead Coordinator Phone:(501)318-1300 Email:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Web:www.wletc.com --------------------------------------------------------------------- QmailToaster hosted by: VR Hosted <http://www.vr.org> --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] --------------------------------------------------------------------- QmailToaster hosted by: VR Hosted <http://www.vr.org> --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
