specs & platform for new server

[Ugo Bellavance]

    [ The following text is in the "ISO-8859-1" character set. ]
    [ Your display is set for the "US-ASCII" character set.  ]
    [ Some characters may be displayed incorrectly. ]

Sylvain Phaneuf wrote:
> I see your point and I don't mind the server being very busy. The only
> problem is that we have left the default setting "reject MTA connections
> when load is >12". So when our ISP realises that we don't accept their
> messages, our messages are put on their "wait 15 min" queue. Should I
> change the setting to much bigger nmbers?

What I'd do is push this number a little, then see if the delay for
delivery and other factors (memory usage, swapping, message batch size,
etc.) go bad.  If it is still ok, I'd keep on pushing it up.

>
> Sylvain
>
>
>
>
>>>>mailscanner at ECS.SOTON.AC.UK 19/11/2004 09:46:23 >>>
>
> You have raised one interesting point: MailScanner will happily drive
> your
> system's load average up through the roof. Most of these will be
> processes
> awaiting network response. A load average of 10 or 12 doesn't really
> mean
> anything. What counts is the size of message batches that are being
> processed. If the batches are small then you have nothing to worry
> about. If
> the batches start approaching 30 regularly, then you should look into
> more
> powerful hardware and better network setup.
>
> Don't think your system is being hammered because it reports a load
> average
> over 10 most of the time. That is MailScanner working your box very
> hard!
>
> On 19/11/04 9:29 am, "Sylvain Phaneuf"
> <sylvain.phaneuf at IMSU.OXFORD.AC.UK>
> wrote:
>
>
>>I think the number of messages a system can process is slightly
>
> besides
>
>>the point. The size of the messages is surely an important factor,
>>especially when the system runs anti-virus checks.
>>
>>Far from being a Unix expert, I have asked advice from expert
>>colleagues for tuning our current server (P3, 1.4 GHZ cpu, 1 GB RAM,
>>RAID 1), and we have followed the suggestions given on the FAQ and
>
> MAQ.
>
>>Processing 35k messages a day gives us several periods of load > 12.
>
> For
>
>>about 5 or 6 hours during the day we receive nearly 100 messages per
>>minute, the average size being 30 to 40 KB. I have difficulties
>
> seing
>
>>that our system should be able to handle 1 million messages per day
>
> as
>
>>suggested by some.
>>
>>Sylvain
>>
>>
>>
>>>>>mailscanner at CPYOU.COM 19/11/2004 01:33:59 >>>
>>
>>Since reading this and other related threads of late, I have to
>
> revisit
>
>>my
>>server design guidelines.  I administrate 5 production MailScanner
>>based
>>email servers processing a total of 80-100k messages per day.  I was
>>recently asked to design and possibly build a spam/virus filtering
>>solution
>>to easily support up to 2 million messages per day.
>>
>>I remember seeing guidelines (from Julian himself I believe) on this
>>list
>>and in the FAQ mentioning to design MailScanner running on decent
>>hardware
>>for approximately 50,000 messages per day.  Now that I read the
>>suggestions
>>and the FAQ again, I see that people are saying a well tuned
>
> solution
>
>>should be capable of 1 million...
>>
>>Most of my email servers (2-3 year old P3 and P4's typically) have
>>periods
>>of increased load even when processing a measley 20-30k messages per
>>day, I
>>doubt that the effective throughput difference makes the system
>
> scale
>
>>to a
>>million (thats why I am asking you folks).  I have seen less load
>
> with
>
>>recent versions of MS and SA but not to that degree.
>>
>>For the first time ever I have a nearly unlimited design budget for
>>this
>>project (but I might not get to build it for other reasons) and am
>>wondering a few things.  I was initially thinking of using a quad
>>Opteron
>>system with 4 gigs of ram and 8 disks in raid 10 based on the
>>benchmarks I
>>am seeing.  Since the solution has to be completely redundant I
>
> would
>
>>need
>>at least 2 of these boxes...  I assume from the new comments that 2
>
> of
>
>>these should have no problems handling more than 2 million messages
>
> per
>
>>day.
>>
>>Alternately I would use 4 or 6 smaller dual Xeon Nocona or 2xx
>
> series
>
>>Opteron servers with 2 GB ram and 4 disks in raid 10 each.  I assume
>>this
>>would give greater CPU and I/O per email request at a lower cost.
>>Would 6
>>of these handle the expected peak loads?
>>
>>Also, should I use the Linux High Availability project to direct
>
> SMTP
>
>>requests evenly across all or should I simply load balance using
>
> (even
>
>>or
>>odd) weighted MX records in DNS?  I guess the LHA solution would
>>require an
>>extra 2 small servers acting as external facing TCP port 25
>
> directors
>
>>and 2
>>high I/O systems acting as internal central mailbox repository
>
> servers
>
>>which drives up the cost/complexity.
>>
>>The solution I have proposed is the standard Sendmail, Procmail,
>>MailScanner, Spamassassin, a list of RBLs, DCC, Vipuls Razor, Pyzor,
>>ClamAV
>>with at least 2 other commercial virus scanners running on RHEL.
>
>
> --
> Julian Field
> www.MailScanner.info
> Buy the MailScanner book at www.MailScanner.info/store
>
> PGP footprint: EE81 D763 3DB0 0BFD E1DC 7222 11F6 5947 1415 B654
>
> ------------------------ MailScanner list ------------------------
> To unsubscribe, email jiscmail at jiscmail.ac.uk with the words:
> 'leave mailscanner' in the body of the email.
> Before posting, read the MAQ (http://www.mailscanner.biz/maq/) and
> the archives (http://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/lists/mailscanner.html).
>
> Support MailScanner development - buy the book off the website!
>
> ------------------------ MailScanner list ------------------------
> To unsubscribe, email jiscmail at jiscmail.ac.uk with the words:
> 'leave mailscanner' in the body of the email.
> Before posting, read the MAQ (http://www.mailscanner.biz/maq/) and
> the archives (http://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/lists/mailscanner.html).
>
> Support MailScanner development - buy the book off the website!
>

------------------------ MailScanner list ------------------------
To unsubscribe, email jiscmail at jiscmail.ac.uk with the words:
'leave mailscanner' in the body of the email.
Before posting, read the MAQ (http://www.mailscanner.biz/maq/) and
the archives (http://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/lists/mailscanner.html).

Support MailScanner development - buy the book off the website!