Re: [exim] Performance considerations

On Tue, 07 Sep 2004 11:02:44 -0500, Edgar Lovecraft wrote:
> Nigel Metheringham wrote:
> > Frankly this will make zippo difference to the amount of memory used by
> > exim on a machine.
>
> How so? If I do not need the support, and I do not compile it in, then
> I never have to worry about it taking up any space at all, memory or
> otherwise.

Code is only paged in if it is used, so features that are not used do not
occupy memory.

> Are you sure about that? If that is true, then why is there an explicite
> setting to not load perl support until it is needed? Besides, why
> compile in support that you will never use.

Because compiling in Perl support makes compiling Exim in some places harder
? Because compiling in Perl support gives your more possible bugs ? Because
having a full blown interpreter compiled into the MTA makes my security
persona twitch and froth at the mouth ? Because that comment was written at
a time when compiling in Perl support *did* make a big difference in memory
size (Exim is old enough to co-exist with Unix varients that didn't have
paging).

--
Mike Meredith, Senior Informatics Officer
University of Portsmouth: Hostmaster, Postmaster and Security
If someone else can run arbitary code on your computer
without your permission, it's not YOUR computer any more.