Re: 400 000 mails in 12 Hours

["I. Forbes" <iforbes@zsd.co.za>]

Hello debian-isp 

On 27 Feb 2003 at 12:10, debian-isp wrote:

> I have the task of setting up a mailserver capabel of sending 400 000
> mail in a max time of 12 hours. All mails have an attachment of 1 mb.
> The system should be a mailer for a newsletter system. As I made quite
> a couple of things with postfix, my concern is the amount and
> considerations which have to be made when handling such an amount. 

I have a problem with this.

I cannot imagine any scenario which would justify sending out 400 000 
e-mails with a 1Mb attachment. The chaos that this will cause to your 
recipients and the ISP's that host their e-mail will be very 
significant. You are likely to find yourself subject to many 
complaints, and a listing on "Spamcop" is a distinct possibility.

So before you look at the technicalities of sending the e-mail 
server, try and answer the following first:

-   Have all 400 000 people indicated their willingness to receive 
this
    e-mail? I can't believe they are employees of an organization, 
and
    even if they are clients of a bank or insurance company, it does 
not
    mean they would all be happy to get your e-mail.

-   Does the attachment have to be 1 Mb? Unless it contains essential
    graphs or maps, it should be possible to make is smaller. 1 Mb of
    text can hold a very large amount of information.

-   Would it not be better to distribute the file from a web site or 
ftp
    site, and e-mail a link from where it could be downloaded?

I manage an e-mail list on behalf of a club. There are about 100 
paying members on the list which is used to distribute a news letter 
about once a month. Some members are keen to see some pictures in the 
news letter - which obviously adds to it's size. If the file size is 
held at 500 to 700 kb it usually goes through without problems. If 
the file size exceeds 1 mB we have had up to 30% bounces, complaints 
and a variety of other problems. Every issue I have to negotiate with 
the editor to get the size reduced! (This is the size of the file 
that gets attached, the e-mail is significantly bigger.)

Good Luck

Ian

---------------------------------------------------------------------
Ian Forbes ZSD
http://www.zsd.co.za
Office: +27 21 683-1388  Fax: +27 21 674-1106
Snail Mail: P.O. Box 46827, Glosderry, 7702, South Africa
---------------------------------------------------------------------