--On den 20 mars 2006 11.54.29 -0500 Valdis Kletnieks
<[log in to unmask]> wrote:

> I'm not aware of anybody who is doing a million e-mails per day using the
> IIS SMTP. 

Only seriously masochistic people would try. 

> On the other hand, doing a million e-mails per day using
> Sendmail on a Unix/Linux box is no trouble at all once you spend some
> time tuning it, an a million per hour is achievable with some work.  10M
> per hour will involve some investment in serious hardware resources,
> however... ;)

Agree. 

> General hints that will apply no matter *what* MTA you use:

> 2) Although the RFCs frown on it, you're best off making *one* attempt to
> deliver the mail with drastically shortened timeouts.

This is really good advice if you are in the situation where some
recipients are slow and/or down frequently. One of my private lists (on
Mailman, but this is the same, regardless of MLM) went from "grumpy users"
to "happyness" just by tuning around the broken FirstClass thing the
Business majors (PHB school) "use" for "mail", prioritising the Real Mail
Servers. 
 
> 3) If most of the mailings are going to the same people as the last time,
> I *highly* recommend a local caching-only DNS server ...
> 'FEATURE(nocanonify)' in the
> sendmail.mc file is the magic incantation).

Seconded. 

> 4) Make sure all the 'User Unknown' bounces get fed back for removal from
> the database.
> 
> 5) Be prepared to have somebody watching the queues in case 
> 
> 6) If you don't have a clue what an SMTP 421 error is, find somebody who
> does. 
>
> 7) Have working *and responsive* abuse@ and postmaster@ aliases. 

Excellent advice. Vladis know this. Do things like above and your task will
be much easier. 

-- 
Måns Nilsson                     Systems Specialist
+46 70 681 7204   cell                       KTHNOC
+46 8 790 6518  office                  MN1334-RIPE

If I pull this SWITCH I'll be RITA HAYWORTH!!  Or a SCIENTOLOGIST!