Re: [exim] [PATCH] ratelimit improvements

Tony Finch wrote:
> On Tue, 5 Feb 2008, W B Hacker wrote:
>> Is there | will there be, a [more] sophisticated matching debug feature
>> of the sort that says WTTE: 'current ratelimit rules can be expected to
>> <do whatever they do at [set points]> ... in Peter-Rabbit English? i.e.
>> - extrapolating from the config, not needing a test-suite to be run for
>> 'tuning'.
>
> I'm not sure this is possible. Rate limiting is inherently dynamic, so a
> static analysis can't tell you much. It should be obvious to a postmaster
> that putting a ratelimit condition into a RCPT ACL will apply a rate limit
> during a RCPT command, just like any other ACL condition.

Yes - 'obvious' to a degree - but it isn't just dynamic - it is a
'complex' dynamic.

>
> Perhaps you have particular questions in mind that could usefully be
> answered statically, but I can't think of any that would make it worth the
> development time,

I think the difference is that unlike debug testing of a single message
with certain address/content/format/routing/filter or acl 'trip'
characteristics, ratelimiting would imply a need for a stream of
messages as a test suite.

> and that can't already be answered using Exim's
> debugging features or ACL warn verbs.
>
> Tony.

That '..already be answered' is the part I'm concerned about.

- absent a stream of test traffic, are existing tools in fact adequate
to 'predict' what a change to ratelimit settings 'should be expected' to
produce as a result?

Bill