More thoughts on list hosting, and how we can improve this
predicament.
> For the past 3-5 days, we have been experiencing significant network
> performance issues. Most of the problem has been traced to some UUNET
> outages somewhere back east.
>
> Could this response time issue be related??
I think this would impose significant delays, even losses, on web
page fetches from the same host. Hence, I doubt this would be a major
portion of the problem.
As of 7:50, I only have 19 posts from 3/26.
It is sad to see this community falling apart, though I suppose
technical reasons are far better reasons than flame wars, financial greed,
or as another list I am on, due to the Very Inappropriateness of the
character and ethnic orientation of a moderator appointed to the task.
(kind of like appointing a flaming Christian fundamentalist to moderate a
list of Buddhists and Shintoists. Then rigging the list so no one can
unsubscribe!) Al, regardless of our list problems, you are a Great
moderator!
I think we need to move the host.
If the ISP cared, they would have seen that a substantial number of
documents are lost by the mail server, and/or that the mail server is
overloaded. Mail is delivered by a full handshaking protocol. If the
final handshake fails, you will get multiple copies, some of which may be
partial copies, which I have not seen, nor heard complaints thereof.
>From this, I deduce that the losses are on the list server.
If the losses were true failures to deliver, Al would be getting many
failure to deliver notices. Most mail servers hold mail for some five
days before the mail is expired. With Sendmail, the first notice occurs
within four hours, and the final notice occurs at the four or five day
mark. I am sure Al would have either removed those people who's addresses
bounce repeatedly, or shaken the ISP. Thus, I deduce that the losses are
because of configuration errors on the mail server.
Configuration errors often have broader consequences, including the
generation of repeated error messages. While this is not always true, it
is probable. Thus I believe the administrators of the mail server, or
their supervisors are probably covering the problem up, possibly by
routing those messages to /dev/nul.
From this, I would believe that the ISP is likely not hiring the
best, nor interested in providing quality hosting. They probably want
less demanding clients than a major list of web professionals.
Had the ISP been interested, they would have taken whatever steps
possible to be well thought of on this list of people who routinely
recommend ISP's for web hosting. Indeed, they would likely have offered
some bonuses for a footer line or mention in the trailer on each post to
this list. Such arrangements are not that uncommon. (And have thoroughly
corrupted some moderators.)
So my final conclusion is that we should oblige clever.net and save
them the costs of upgrading their servers and administrators by moving to
a better host.
(No, I do not suggest where, only that it be done SOON.)
One suggestion would be a series of regional satellite lists all
subscribed to a central list of satellites.
<PRE>
[Reg A] ----- [Central] ------[Reg Z]
[Reg B]-------/ \----------[Reg Y]
...
Posts to any of the regional lists would be sent to their own
subscribers as well as to the central list. The central list would send
each post to all but the originating satellite, (no echo option,) and thus
the post would reach everyone.
The key advantages of this approach are that the central list would
have a much smaller spooling problem, and it would be far easier to
re-designate any of the satellite lists to handle the central list of the
satellites in event of problems. In event that any of the regional
satellites goes down, only a portion of the list would be lost, and those
could be more easily moved (or move themselves,) to another satellite.
The disadvantage, is that the delays would increase slightly over a
competent single list host. However, in the event of a good choice of
hosts, this would be minimal, and certainly FAR better than what we have
been experiencing! Even before this problem, it was usually two to four
hours before I got return copies of my own posts!
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