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Date:      Wed, 20 Jun 2001 22:14:09 -0700
From:      Terry Lambert <tlambert2@mindspring.com>
To:        void <float@firedrake.org>
Cc:        Matt Dillon <dillon@earth.backplane.com>, freebsd-hackers@FreeBSD.ORG
Subject:   Re: max kernel memory
Message-ID:  <3B3182A1.3FA92488@mindspring.com>
References:  <Pine.LNX.4.21.0106201112090.1235-100000@vangogh.indranetworks.com> <200106200704.f5K74M706441@earth.backplane.com> <20010620193151.C2973@firedrake.org>

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void wrote:
> 
> On Wed, Jun 20, 2001 at 12:04:22AM -0700, Matt Dillon wrote:
> >
> >     A web proxy could be
> >     round-robined fairly easily, but for a mail relay it
> >     is often a good idea to split the incoming and outgoing
> >     mail into two separate round robins (two separate groups
> >     of machines).
> 
> Why's that?  So you can tune each type of machine appropriately for
> the task?  How would you tune incoming and outgoing mail servers
> differently?

Outgoing mail servers and incoming mail servers have
different load characteristics and requirements.

Without giving away any intellectual property from my
own startup, here's a small sample:

o	Incoming

	SPAM filtering
	+'ed address delivery
	Virtual domains
	Automated "spam" complaint handling
	Automated "abuse" complaint handling
	Virus scanning
	Relay denial
	Per domain mail queues

o	Outgoing

	Relay permitted for customers
	SMTP-after-POP
	SMTP AUTH
	Exponential rate limiting, to avoid being a
		SPAM source
	Per message recipient count limiting ""
	Total message count limiting
	Outbound queue aging
	Identd processing, to avoid 3 minute delays
	DNS outage handling/avoidance
	Queue aging
	Queue division
	Large queue processing
	Hosted mailing list processing
	Connection caching

That's about 1/3 my list for each of the two roles I've
chosen to disclose here.

In other words, it's a pretty big list, with a lot of
differences between the roles, translating into a lot of
differences between the tuning of both the applications
you run, and the servers themselves (you might even
decide to run sendmail in one direction, and qmail in
the other, based on operational characteristics).


FWIW: I designed and implemented (with help) the IBM
Web Connections NOC in Rochester New York, for pretty
much everything except the autoconfiguration database
for a specialized appliance.  Matt was one of the
founders of Best Internet, Inc., which was bought out
by Verio.

Knowing how this stuff works is why Matt and I and
others were so offended at the "SysAdmin Magazine
``benchmark'' report on FreeBSD vs. other OSs": it
was not, as some have claimed, "sour grapes", it was
professional indignation.

-- Terry

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