From owner-freebsd-isp@FreeBSD.ORG Thu Oct 14 17:39:16 2004 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-isp@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.FreeBSD.org (mx1.freebsd.org [216.136.204.125]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 9856D16A4CE for ; Thu, 14 Oct 2004 17:39:16 +0000 (GMT) Received: from outmx005.isp.belgacom.be (outmx005.isp.belgacom.be [195.238.2.102]) by mx1.FreeBSD.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id BD1AF43D5A for ; Thu, 14 Oct 2004 17:39:15 +0000 (GMT) (envelope-from jo@umask.net) Received: from outmx005.isp.belgacom.be (localhost [127.0.0.1]) with ESMTP id i9EHdDhc010337 for ; Thu, 14 Oct 2004 19:39:13 +0200 (envelope-from ) Received: from ernie.lan.net (118.48-200-80.adsl.skynet.be [80.200.48.118]) with ESMTP id i9EHd7eK010292 for ; Thu, 14 Oct 2004 19:39:07 +0200 (envelope-from ) Received: from jgeraert by ernie.lan.net with local (Exim 4.34) id 1CI9ZD-0000Zi-B2 for freebsd-isp@freebsd.org; Thu, 14 Oct 2004 19:39:07 +0200 Date: Thu, 14 Oct 2004 19:39:07 +0200 From: Jo Geraerts To: freebsd-isp@freebsd.org Message-ID: <20041014173907.GA2186@ernie.lan.net> References: <20041012212051.5A91A148D1@mail.sources.org> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Disposition: inline In-Reply-To: <20041012212051.5A91A148D1@mail.sources.org> User-Agent: Mutt/1.5.6+20040818i Sender: Jo Geraerts Subject: Re: Documentation of big "mail systems"? X-BeenThere: freebsd-isp@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.1 Precedence: list List-Id: Internet Services Providers List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Thu, 14 Oct 2004 17:39:16 -0000 hi, On Tue, Oct 12, 2004 at 11:20:51PM +0200, Stephane Bortzmeyer wrote: > I'm currently writing a proposal for a webmail service for, say, 50 > 000 to 500 000 users. I'm looking for description of existing "big > mail" systems, using technologies like scalemail > (http://scalemail.sourceforge.net/), specially with an emphasis on the > storage subsystem for the servers (my weak point, I don't really have > enough experience with SAN, NAS, and so on). i would seriously consider a qmail-ldap system as backend. Especially the clustering feature is very nice. With this clustering you can simply use off-the-shelf hardware and balance the mailboxes over the mailstores ( as i call them.) a mail may enter the cluster at any system and it will be queued on the right system. qmail-ldap has also a password check for courier-imap which redirects the imap session to the right mailstore. so it behaves as a single system with lots of mailstorage but you don't need pricy nas/san systems. Another advantage is that it scales pretty good since you dont have a single point ( like a nas) where everything comes together. i've a mail setup with 1 MX server, 2 mailstores and a relay server which servers about 130 000 people with simple commodity hardware: dual p3, 1 gig mem and 2 IDE harddisks. The dual processor is a little bit oversized but we use the same server for everything. if you want advanced filtering and anti-spam features, put postfix/exim/... in front of the qmail-ldap cluster. ( qmail-scanner is so not done on large systems, since it requires a perl invocation per connection) As webmail i use squirrelmail, but i think i made the wrong choice. The problem with this setup is that it makes a imap connection for every pagerequest. If I had to redesign a new webmail system, i think i would use something that supports persistent imap connections ( some kind of servlet or zope application) best regards, jo -- /****************************************************************** * Geraerts Jo * Politics: * * jo@umask.net * Poly: many * * http://umask.net * Ticks: blood sucking parasites * ******************************************************************/