Re: [EXIM] Delay delivering local mail

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Author: Philip Hazel
Date:  
To: Mike McEwan, Ben Smithurst
CC: exim-users
Subject: Re: [EXIM] Delay delivering local mail
On Wed, 23 Sep 1998, Ben Smithurst wrote:

[re smtp_accept_queue_per_connection]

> Why can't this default to zero ... ? I assume it's a new option, and the
> way I see it, new options should default to the old behaviour, IYSWIM.


Yes, I do normally do that. However, this was a special case:

> > This helps to limit the number of Exim processes when a server
> > restarts after downtime and there is a lot of mail waiting for it on other
> > systems.
>
> Ah, that might explain why it defaults to what it is now :-)


Indeed. There had been reports of problems in the situation described
when a zillion mail messages pour in over a short period, especially on
relay systems where each delivery process might take a bit of time. This
option was an attempt to alleviate the problem.

I looked at our mail logs, and the vast majority of messages come in one
per SMTP session, so I figured that 10 was a reasonable default. Perhaps
I was being over cautious. What do people think? Should the default be
higher? The default for smtp_accept_max is 20 and 20 x 10 is 200
processes; I don't suppose putting it up to 20 (=> max 400 processes)
would be too disastrous.

-- 
Philip Hazel            University of Cambridge Computing Service,
ph10@???      Cambridge, England. Phone: +44 1223 334714.



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