Re: Qmail/Postfix/Sendmail for fastest outgoing mail
> > > however, it won't solve the multiple-recipients-at-one-domain
> > > problem. if qmail relays individual messages via a postfix box,
> > > then the postfix box will have individual messages in it's queue -
> > > it can't recombine them into one message. i.e. the "damage" has
> > > already been done.
> >
> > I don't quite understand that part about the "damage" already being
> > done. For example, if Qmail hands Postfix, say, 10 emails
> > (individually, as Qmail does), and 5 of those emails is to the same
> > domain/mailserver, wouldn't Postfix "combine" them and send them at
> > one time?
>
> nope, because postfix has no way of knowing that they were originally
> the same email(*). postfix has been handed 10 individual emails by
> qmail, so it will deliver 10 individual emails.
Mmm... but, for example, if it scanned it's queue every 30 seconds, for
example, it could then combine them together? I'd assume ISPs and such
would have great use for this, especially on web hosting boxes, as
overhead in sending numerous emails could be saved?
> postfix would be slightly faster than qmail but not that much faster
> that it's worth using different software for - unless part of your
> purpose is to get some real (as opposed to testing) experience with
> postfix to decide whether it's worth switching.
Actually, I can't see how Postfix would be at all faster, since it would
still be sending individual emails on separate connections. In fact,
wouldn't it be slower, since Qmail was optimized specifically for this?
>
> sendmail isn't a good choice if high-performance is important to you.
> overall performance would probably be worse than just keeping things as
> they are. (there, that was a very politic way of saying that, wasn't it
:)
>
Hehe... Sendmail was out of the running almost since the beginning, I was
just using it as an idea/example.
>
> if you want to fix this problem, you have to do it at the source - i.e.
> replace qmail with postfix on your main boxes. that would be a lot of
> work, not something to be done lightly.
And certainly not feasible on production systems... unfortunate. But
actually, Qmail was the best choice at the time, since it an Vpopmail make
such a good incoming email system.
>
> if you're not using ezmlm, you may be able to hack your list manager to
> bypass local qmail and send outgoing messages via SMTP direct to the
> postfix box. this may involve hacking the list manager to talk SMTP
> rather thank fork /usr/sbin/sendmail, or it may involve replacing
> /usr/sbin/sendmail with a wrapper script that talks SMTP. either way,
> it's not too hard.
Nope... not running ezmlm at all, just a lot of CGIs (through web/Apache)
sending emails. Actually... I wonder... is there any drop-in replacement
for /usr/sbin/sendmail that would just dump the emails to another server
for actual sending? This should not affect receiving email in the least
(hence minimize disruption) but would need to be able to dump the emails
at a high rate. I'm not sure if there is such a thing though.
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