>There's nothing wrong with that sequence, other than the delay in getting >to the posting. The problem is that your machine isn't fast enough to >keep up with new mail at the speed at which it arrives. The jobs are not >necessarily processed FIFO, which leads to occasional record delays, but >the real problem is that you have a chronical backlog which is not even >clearing overnight (if it had cleared, the posting would have been the >only message left in the spool and would have been processed promptly). >Any mail system that has backlogs that do not clear overnight needs to be >upgraded as it is underperforming the postal service :-) You should never >have more than a dozen files in your spool directory, except following a >system or network outage, or during the short bursts of traffic that are >typical for mail workloads. If you consistently have thousands of files >in your spool directory, your system is underpowered. Eric, thanks for the thoughts. I hadn't considered a horsepower problem because this is a Sun 4/490 that until a year ago had 40-60 users on it, each running several sessions, doing all sorts of resource-intensive things. Presently this machine does practically nothing but relay mail, and it's hard to believe it wouldn't be powerful enough to handle that. A quick check tells me it's running at 15% idle, and there are a few dozen files in LISTSERV's spool directory. I expected to see something more like 90% idle, so you may have a point. I'll do some investigation... Thanks.... +=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+ Laura Toms UNIX Sytem Administrator and Postmaster OCLC Online Computer Library Center, Inc., Dublin, Ohio [log in to unmask] 1-800-848-5878 x5016 +=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+