Idea for a handy new feature

[Steve Freegard]

Hi All,

I've just thought of a new feature for MailScanner that I'd personally find
really useful.

In light of the recent problems with Razor, Pyzor, DCC and the RBLs due to
DDOS attacks and the like, it is difficult to tell sometimes if
MailScanner's throughput of messages is as great as it could be due to these
outside influences.

A number of people have asked before if it is possible to give a time to
process for each message through the various virus/spam/rbl checks - which
is a problem as MailScanner batches the messages together.

I think I've come up with a way to achieve this relativly easily that will
provide stats for MailScanner-MRTG, Mailstats and MailWatch, and provide a
some benchmarks that can be used by a MailScanner admin to tune his/her
hardware and settings for maximum performance.

Here's my theory:

- MailScanner picks up message(s) from mqueue.in
maillog: New Batch: Scanning 7 messages, 30160 bytes

Variables to store:
 batch[Number of messages]
 batch[Total bytes]
 batch[Start] = timestamp

- MailScanner goes through the RBL, Spam, Virus, Attachment and Message
Processing stages

For each process stage record the variables:
 <<process_name>>[Start] = timestamp
 <<process_name>>[Finish] = timestamp

- Once processing is finished, and just prior to moving the messages to
mqueue

Store:
 batch[Finish] = timestamp

Calculate:
 batch[Finish] - batch[Start] = batch[Total Time]
 batch[Total Time] / batch[Total Bytes] = batch[Bytes Per Second]

 For each process:
 <<process_name>>[Finish] - <<process_name>>[Start] = <<process_name>>[Total
Time]
 <<process_name>>[Total Time] / batch[Total Bytes] = <<process_name>>[Bytes
Per Second]

Then for each message in the batch (using the $message object) store:
  $message->{total_time} = batch[Bytes Per Second] * $message->{size}
  For each process:
  $message->{<<process_name>>_time} = <<process_name>>[Bytes Per Second] *
$message->{size}

- Move messages to mqueue for delivery
maillog: Uninfected: Delievered 7 messages, 30160 bytes [Total tt.ttt at nn.nnn
bps, RBL tt.ttt at n.nnn bps, SA tt.ttt at nn.nnn bps, Virus tt.ttt at nn.nnn bps,
Content tt.ttt at nn.nnn bps] (tt = time, nn = bytes per second)

Thoughts??

Kind regards,
Steve.

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