At 04:26 PM 4/3/02, Mohamed M. Abbas wrote:

>On Wed, 3 Apr 2002, Daniel Senie wrote:
>
> > At 03:30 PM 4/3/02, Mohamed M. Abbas wrote:
> > >Hello All,
> > >
> > >I run a combination of sendmail / qpopper setup for our email
> > >infrastructure. And we've been having more and more users ( 5000 users
> > >total ) start to leave their mail on the server.
> >
> > Time to institute a policy to sweep out the cruft.
> > >  We have about 30 people
> > >who have in excess of 25 Megs of mail on the server. When anyone of
> > >those 30 users checks their email, the load on the system skyrockets
> > >through the roof.
> >
> > We run a utility that sweeps out mailboxes. Presently we have it delete
> > anything that's been in a mailbox for more than 30 days. Worked like a
> > champ, and much easier than trying to police our user base.
> >
>
>I thought about that. But I'm not sure if it's effective for a user base
>of 5000, where there is a trend to leave mail on the server.

My feeling is, it's quite practical. I have the sweeper running at 3AM, 
when few are using the server. But even so, the load from the sweeper is 
minimal.


> > >  My question is this: Is QPopper or POP3 suited for
> > >situations where users leave their email on the server?
> >
> > Well, qpopper is an application, and POP3 is the protocol it implements.
> > You might want to rephrase your question. As for qpopper's performance in
> > such cases, there are several tunable parameters which you might want to
> > consider. Others have discussed these recently. I'll let others comment on
> > the best approaches and tradeoffs.
>
> > >  And if it's not
> > >suited for such purpose, what protocol / software is?
> >
> > Your protocol choices are POP3 and IMAP.
>
>I guess I have to be more precise. Given the situation that I've described
>above, which protocol is more suited for it?

Well, IMAP is more complex to describe to users. That's the primary reason 
we don't support it. Just not worth the support costs.

>  And if POP3 is suited, how do
>I go about to configure QPopper in such a way as not to produce load
>spikes every time someone who leaves his mail on ther server check his/her
>email.

This I'll leave to others. There's some material in the manual about this, 
and some that folks have learned.


>Mohamed M. Abbas
>[EMAIL PROTECTED]
>System Administrator
>Longwood College

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Daniel Senie                                        [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Amaranth Networks Inc.                    http://www.amaranth.com

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