Child Process vs batch size

[Ugo Bellavance]

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Pete Russell wrote:
> You can test this when your destination MTA is down and 2 or 3k message 
> bank up- not sure how you can test this in real time without causing 
> lots of delays for end users?

Well, I could always use the 'startin' options to the init script, so 
that the mta accepts connections; then start MailScanner after having a 
couple of dozens of messages in queue.  But it may cause delays...

> 
> It doesnt reach more than 10 because MS looks every 5sec and processes 
> what mail it finds providing its less than 30 messages, 



I assume max per
> batch is set to 30. In 5 sec your mail server doesnt accumulate more 
> than 10 messages.
> 

Yes, I know it is not a problem.  I'm just wondering whether I could get 
more efficiency if I lowered my child process.  I know it seems stupid 
to try to get better efficiency from a system that is not too busy. 
However, my is reasoning is that if process 1 picks up 5 messages and 
process 2 picks up only 1 message, process 1 might have to wait while 
SpamAssassin and virus engines are also loaded in memory by process 2. 
Here is where I am, I don't know enough of internals to figure out myself.

So the question is, theoretically, will 100 messages will be processed 
more quickly by, say, 4 child processes (batches of 30, 30, 30, 10+ 
messages that came in in the meantime) than 10 child process (30, 30, 
30, 10, + 6 processes that are processing 1-2 messages each.

> Performance when you get hammered wont change all that much (in my 
> limeted experience) in low volume environments, like mine.

Well, I think it might change if the total messages that is in the 
incoming queue at one moment is larger than the total messages that can 
be handled by all the MailScanner processes (30 X # of child processes)

> 
> 
> Ugo Bellavance wrote:
>> Hi,
>>
>>     I know that MailScanner gets its efficiency by processing messages 
>> in batches (hence loading SA and AV engines only once per batch.  I 
>> was looking at the average size of my batches, and it rarely goes over 
>> 10, which is far from the standard max size of 30.  Would I get more 
>> efficiency by lowering my # of child process?  Would I have the same 
>> performance if I get struck by a spam storm?
>>
>>     Open to opinions...
>>
>> Regards,
> 


-- 
Ugo

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