Reading this response reminds me why (one of the reasons) I started using Postfix, I support about 200 users, all via IMAP/WebMail. Lots of server space is used by the old e-mail, but performance is still good...when using maildir/ Of course one machine is the SMTP/IMAP and the other is the intranet server + e-mail access. I think the e-mail server is only a 500Mhz + 256MB. I get filtering from the Postfix RBL code, and no virus scanner (is there a free one that will plug in good to Postfix?) FWIW The loadavg on the machine is like .70, and nobody complains. How many messages a day? I subscribe to this list, and a few others...that comes in this mail server, plus daily business mail/jokes/spam that my users get. Maybe I'll benchmark one day.
/B ----- Original Message ----- From: "Gordon Messmer" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Sent: Thursday, January 16, 2003 11:33 Subject: Re: sizing server for sendmail & mailscanner > On Thu, 2003-01-16 at 08:25, Roger Schmeits wrote: > > How much horsepower do I need for scanning 5000 emails a day? > > Using sendmail & mailscanner. > > On Thu, 2003-01-16 at 09:35, Roger Schmeits wrote: > > We have about 150 faculty members with 600 student accounts and are > > looking to and 3000 alumni members accounts in the spring (eeek!). > > Well, we are supporting only about 1000 users with sendmail and > spamassassin (run via spamc) alone (no virus scanning, that is) on a > dual 1Ghz P3 system with 2GB of RAM. Performance is awful, and the load > is around 30 most of the day. Spamassassin really isn't to blame > either, performance was basically this bad before it was introduced. > > The problem is largely in that sendmail uses mbox files, and a couple of > users leave mail on the server though they're told not to, and they eat > all of the disk bandwidth (every mail check reads and then re-writes > their entire mail spool). > > Just wanted to illustrate that performance bottlenecks aren't always > where you expect them... Your setup will need to be tested by you. :) > > We're moving on to a scalable email system built like so: > 1.8Ghz Xeon / 1GiB RAM / 1TiB disk for /home > - Server provides NFS service > > Cluster of initially 2: > 800 Mhz P3 / 500 MiB RAM / 20 GiB disk > - Courier SMTP > - Courier IMAP > - Courier POP > - Apache > - Courier Webmail > - Spamassassin > - OpenAntiVirus virus scanner > - mounts /home from NFS server > > The CPU in the NFS server is way more than it needs, and the disk in the > clustered machines is greater than their needs, but both of those were > the smallest options available. > > The clustered boxes operate in DNS round-robin fashion for basic load > balancing, and are configured identically except for their IP addresses > and hostnames. The cluster should be linearly scalable, so performance > can be dealt with by adding additional machines to that cluster. > > The whole thing takes less than a day to set up. NFS is available on a > standard Server install of RHL, but I use this kickstart file instead: > http://rh-install.prognet.com/kickstart/ks-73-default.cfg > Set up the NFS share and LDAP or NIS access (in my case, already > provided on other machines) on that server and it's done. > > The clusters are similar. Used the above kickstart to install the OS, > and then used apt-get to install the rest of the packages from here: > http://www.dragonsdawn.net/apt/redhat/7.3/en/i386/RPMS.dragonsdawn/ > > So, installing that software took: > apt-get install courier courier-imapd courier-maildrop courier-smtpauth > courier-webmail apache ScannerDaemon amavis-courier spamassassin > > Configure the cluster box for LDAP or NIS access, mount /home from the > NFS server, and configure the domains that you want to receive mail for > and this is also basically done. > > Moving forward, I'm working on getting amavisd to work with Courier so > that virus scanning will require less overhead. Some virus scanners > work with courier directly, and don't require the amavis component at > all. > > > > > > -- > redhat-list mailing list > unsubscribe mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]?subject=unsubscribe > https://listman.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/redhat-list -- redhat-list mailing list unsubscribe mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]?subject=unsubscribe https://listman.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/redhat-list
