5 Mar
2005
5 Mar
'05
1:03 a.m.
I changed two things on the list setup tonight.
1) To subscribe to the list (new subscribers, not you guys), requires not
only a confirmation email, but also list owner approval. I'm having way to
much trouble with "people?" joining the list and all their email immediately
bouncing. It gums up the speedy delivery for everyone else.
2) I changed the max time in queue for any message (outbound) to 35 minutes.
This means the server will try to send email to you once, then again 30
minutes later, and then it will just give up on you. It won't unsubscribe
you at that point, it takes like 7 days of bounces to get you unsubbed. But
it won't try to send you any given list post more than twice now. Same
reason as above.
For those sendmail inclined.... I considered setting up a secondary queue
for slow delivery where any emails that take longer than X time get moved to
a low priority queue. Quite frankly, I don't want to deal with it. I'd just
get more complaints about posts being out of order ;)
Jay
5 Mar
5 Mar
1:27 a.m.
2) I changed the max time in queue for any message
(outbound) to 35
minutes. This means the server will try to send email to you once,
then again 30 minutes later, and then it will just give up on you.
[...] But it won't try to send you any given list post more than
twice now.
How does a 421 greeting banner fit into this? Does that count as one
of those two rejections? If so, I need to set my subscription nomail
and subscribe another address, so as to get saner queueing behaviour.
(Otherwise, I'll lose list posts at busy times; any attempt to open a
connection from a host which already has a connection open draws a 421.
But if you're giving up on retries, that rather badly breaks the
assumptions underlying SMTP, and I care enough about list mail to be
willing to go to some minor lengths to keep it useful to me.)
For those sendmail inclined.... I considered setting
up a secondary
queue for slow delivery where any emails that take longer than X time
get moved to a low priority queue. Quite frankly, I don't want to
deal with it. I'd just get more complaints about posts being out of
order ;)
If that really is the concern, maybe make it a per-user option? I'd
certainly turn it on, and can deal with resulting reordering - but if
the actual reason is something more like "I don't have the time/energy
to figure out how to do this" and your comment is just humour, never
mind; I'll just do the other-address dance I sketched above.
If we can work out a way to feed it reliably, I'd be willing to host an
exploder sub-list for people who want more conventional retry behaviour
(and are willing to accept the resulting re-ordering potential), with
the resulting queue management becoming my problem.
/~\ The ASCII der Mouse
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6:56 p.m.
Der Mouse wrote...
How does a 421 greeting banner fit into this?
Good question, and I'm not sure of the answer. I'll find out.
But if you're giving up on retries, that rather
badly breaks the
assumptions underlying SMTP, and I care enough about list mail to be
willing to go to some minor lengths to keep it useful to me.)
I'm certainly not
giving up on retries. I just think it's excessive to allow
7 days of tries, especially when most of those are to addresses that don't
exist, or don't bother to keep their mailboxes from filling up to their
quota.
If that really is the concern, maybe make it a
per-user option?
You're welcome to hack the mailman code and give me the
patches. I need some
time with other things besides this list for a bit, the past two weeks have
been a little excessive. Sorry, I've been a bit grouchy lately.
but if
the actual reason is something more like "I don't have the time/energy
to figure out how to do this"
Not something I'm particularly fond of
admitting, but I have several
customers who I maintain their bulk email systems for. On average, each of
them process over 2 million outbound emails per week, all with Sendmail
clusters. Hey, at least it's subscription based, so I don't feel so slimy.
But my point is, I'm quite adept at handling multiple queues. I'm just a
little worn out. "figuring out how to do this" is not the issue.
Tell you what... once I get the address list cleaned up so that the
subscribers are known good email addresses, I'll set up two stage delivery
with a different queue runner for "problematic target mailservers". Then
I'll set the max time in queue back to a more "reasonable" level. But
I'm
sure I'll get lots of future questions about email order.
Regards,
Jay West
7:01 p.m.
[...]. I need some time with other things besides
this list for a
bit, the past two weeks have been a little excessive. Sorry, I've
been a bit grouchy lately.
No, no, no problem at all. You put in a huge amount of unpaid work to
provide a wonderful resource to us, and I for one am not about to
complain because you've done something to make it a little easier on
yourself.
I'm just trying to figure out how I can best work within that to keep
it as useful as feasible to me too.
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1:30 a.m.
Jay,
Doesn't that mean that now you have to approve them before all their
email from the list bounces? I don't see how that will help unless you
plan to personally email all would be new list members.
Chad Fernandez
Michigan, USA
Jay West wrote:
I changed two things on the list setup tonight.
1) To subscribe to the list (new subscribers, not you guys), requires
not only a confirmation email, but also list owner approval. I'm having
way to much trouble with "people?" joining the list and all their email
immediately bouncing. It gums up the speedy delivery for everyone else.
1:40 a.m.
Chad wrote...
Doesn't that mean that now you have to approve
them before all their email
from the list bounces? I don't see how that will help unless you plan to
personally email all would be new list members.
No, it means I have to approve their subscription before it is activated.
That means there's no list traffic going to them to bounce until I do so.
And yes, I'm considering a personal email to each new list member, and
expecting a response. That will keep the automated tools out.
Jay
8:14 p.m.
And yes, I'm considering a personal email to each
new list member, and
expecting a response. That will keep the automated tools out.
When I joined this list, I had to send a personal e-mail to the moderator
explaining my interest in classic computers.
Apparently this was discontinued fairly quickly because said moderator
got a lot of such messages to read. But that was the first day of the
list's existance. I guess now the number of new subscribers per day is a
lot less.
-tony
1:34 a.m.
On Sat, 5 Mar 2005, Jay West wrote:
I changed two things on the list setup tonight.
1) To subscribe to the list (new subscribers, not you guys), requires not
only a confirmation email, but also list owner approval. I'm having way to
much trouble with "people?" joining the list and all their email immediately
bouncing. It gums up the speedy delivery for everyone else.
How about also sending a copy of the FAQ to new subscribers? I know it's
not much (I swear I'll put time into updating it if I ever get some free
time) but it's something.
2) I changed the max time in queue for any message
(outbound) to 35 minutes.
This means the server will try to send email to you once, then again 30
minutes later, and then it will just give up on you. It won't unsubscribe
you at that point, it takes like 7 days of bounces to get you unsubbed. But
it won't try to send you any given list post more than twice now. Same
reason as above.
Can you please change that to something like 3 times with 2 hour
intervals? Or at least allow it to try more than twice. This still
doesn't help someone who has a 24 hour server outage thanks to their
stupid ISP (like I've been experiencing lately).
For those sendmail inclined.... I considered setting
up a secondary queue
for slow delivery where any emails that take longer than X time get moved to
a low priority queue. Quite frankly, I don't want to deal with it. I'd just
get more complaints about posts being out of order ;)
This solution sounds preferable to me.
--
Sellam Ismail Vintage Computer Festival
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
International Man of Intrigue and Danger http://www.vintage.org
[ Old computing resources for business || Buy/Sell/Trade Vintage Computers ]
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6:38 p.m.
Sellam wrote....
How about also sending a copy of the FAQ to new
subscribers? I know it's
not much (I swear I'll put time into updating it if I ever get some free
time) but it's something.
I'm not positive, but I don't believe mailman
will send an attachment to a
subscriber. I can include specific text, but the entire faq is a bit much to
stuff in the "welcome to the list" email. But, what I CAN do is include a
link to the faq in the new subscriber welcome message.
Can you please change that to something like 3 times
with 2 hour
intervals? Or at least allow it to try more than twice. This still
doesn't help someone who has a 24 hour server outage thanks to their
stupid ISP (like I've been experiencing lately).
Ok, I can do that. But bear in
mind that providing for a particular persons
mailserver to have an extended outage, means that because of YOUR outage, 14
other people won't get their email for a while. How far do I try to
accomodate one person at the expense of others?
I'm still considering options....
Jay
6 Mar
6 Mar
8:47 a.m.
On Sat, 2005-03-05 at 17:38 -0600, Jay West wrote:
Sellam wrote....
Can we also *please* have the following two in the welcome message:
1) This is an international list, so please don't start talking about
local (or country-wide) issues as though they affect all members.
2) Please state your location when offering anything for sale / free /
trade.
Those two really need beating into people with a big stick with
disturbing regularity :-)
How about also sending a copy of the FAQ to new
subscribers? I know it's
not much (I swear I'll put time into updating it if I ever get some free
time) but it's something.
I'm not positive, but I don't believe
mailman will send an attachment to a
subscriber. I can include specific text, but the entire faq is a bit much to
stuff in the "welcome to the list" email. But, what I CAN do is include a
link to the faq in the new subscriber welcome message. 
3:32 p.m.
On Sat, 5 Mar 2005, Jay West wrote:
I'm not positive, but I don't believe mailman
will send an attachment to a
subscriber. I can include specific text, but the entire faq is a bit much to
stuff in the "welcome to the list" email. But, what I CAN do is include a
link to the faq in the new subscriber welcome message.
One old BBS technique is to put a trick answer into the FAQ,
marked obviously like "THERE WILL BE A TRICK QUESTION LATER.
REMEMBER THIS ANSWER: FOO". Thenk ask it.
5 Mar
5 Mar
4:08 a.m.
Jay West wrote:
1) To subscribe to the list (new subscribers, not you
guys), requires
not only a confirmation email, but also list owner approval. I'm having
way to much trouble with "people?" joining the list and all their email
immediately bouncing. It gums up the speedy delivery for everyone else.
How will this prevent bounces? They need to reply to the confirmation email to
join, proving that their email won't bounce.
2) I changed the max time in queue for any message
(outbound) to 35
minutes. This means the server will try to send email to you once, then
again 30 minutes later, and then it will just give up on you. It won't
unsubscribe you at that point, it takes like 7 days of bounces to get
you unsubbed. But it won't try to send you any given list post more than
twice now. Same reason as above.
NOT GOOD!! Please consult sendmail RFCs and best practices. That is not
standard practice and will result in a lot of people not getting email. Should
I lose email if my ISP messes up routing for 2 hours? RFC states four days!
--
Jim Leonard (trixter at oldskool.org) http://www.oldskool.org/
Want to help an ambitious games project? http://www.mobygames.com/
Or check out some trippy MindCandy at http://www.mindcandydvd.com/
4:25 a.m.
> 2) I changed the max time in queue for any message
(outbound) to 35
> minutes. This means the server will try to send email to you once, then
> again 30 minutes later, and then it will just give up on you.
On Sat, 5 Mar 2005, Jim Leonard wrote:
NOT GOOD!! Please consult sendmail RFCs and best
practices. That is not
standard practice and will result in a lot of people not getting email.
Should I lose email if my ISP messes up routing for 2 hours? RFC states four
days!
I concur, this may turn out to be a mistake. There are all sorts
of reasonable reasons mailservers can be or appear to be down for
hours/days.
What precisely is the problem you're addressing? I assume it's
queue size and cpu cycles?
7:13 p.m.
Jim wrote...
NOT GOOD!! Please consult sendmail RFCs and best
practices. That is not
standard practice and will result in a lot of people not getting email.
Should I lose email if my ISP messes up routing for 2 hours? RFC states
four days!
S'ok, I'm comfortable functioning in whatever haphazard environment that you
might find acceptable.
8:11 p.m.
2) I changed the max time in queue for any message
(outbound) to 35 minutes.
This means the server will try to send email to you once, then again 30
minutes later, and then it will just give up on you. It won't unsubscribe
you at that point, it takes like 7 days of bounces to get you unsubbed. But
it won't try to send you any given list post more than twice now. Same
reason as above.
Eeek!!! I don't like this at all. My ISP takes the mail server down from
time to time for scheduled maintenance, it's also failed a few times (not
often, perhaps half a dozen times in 10 years). I don't think it's ever
been down for more than a day, though. It's certainly been down for more
than half an hour
To lose messages becuase of that is not something I am at all happy with.
-tony
10:32 p.m.
Tony wrote...
Eeek!!! I don't like this at all. My ISP takes the
mail server down from
time to time for scheduled maintenance, it's also failed a few times (not
often, perhaps half a dozen times in 10 years). I don't think it's ever
been down for more than a day, though. It's certainly been down for more
than half an hour
To lose messages becuase of that is not something I am at all happy with.
Tony, I think you're missing something here. ISP's pretty much always have
secondary and tertiary mail servers. Just taking down ONE server doesn't
make your mail bounce. The classiccmp server would try the secondary. For
example, your ISP (demon.co.uk) has two mail servers set up. Surely they
don't take BOTH of them down for maintenance at the same time ;)
Actually, I can't think of the last time I've seen ANY domain that didn't
have more than one MX record. Except for someone trying to run a service out
of their house. To do so, is... well...
Jay
10:59 p.m.
Tony, I think you're missing something here.
ISP's pretty much
always have secondary and tertiary mail servers.
I work part-time for a local ISP. One of the things I've been working
with them on is their email infrastructure.
Interestingly (from the perspective of this conversation), one of the
things they have been considering is dropping their secondary MX. They
see the maintenance cost as higher than the redundancy benefit, and
honestly, I don't think they're wrong. I've never before seen anything
but spamware that gives up as soon as the scheme you outlined.
Actually, I can't think of the last time I've
seen ANY domain that
didn't have more than one MX record.
Which != more than one mailhost. My own, for example, has two MX
records, but they both end up at the same host. (I'll be happy to
explain why - ask me off-list....)
Except for someone trying to run a service out of
their house. To do
so, is... well...
...yes? Is...unacceptable? Is...worth bouncing mail addressed to?
Feel free to drop me from the list if you really feel that I am sinning
that egregiously against the email system by running my own mailserver,
and running only the one. (I won't _like_ it, but it's your list.)
/~\ The ASCII der Mouse
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X Against HTML mouse at rodents.montreal.qc.ca
/ \ Email! 7D C8 61 52 5D E7 2D 39 4E F1 31 3E E8 B3 27 4B
6 Mar
6 Mar
12:08 a.m.
I had written....
Not unacceptable. Unreliable. Trying to do it off a line with dynamic
address assignment - screwing up the interplay between DNS and sendmail,
fighting DSL bottlenecks at the DSLAM, etc. etc. Is simply not the best way
to run a mail server. I'm not saying people shouldn't do it actually. I'm
merely saying that when it's done under those conditions, it's hard to
complain about sporadic problems.The people who do it under those conditions
will have to accept that they will have problems, and it's certainly their
right to choose to do so.
And as per my previous email, no, not work bouncing mail addressed to.
Jay West
Except for
someone trying to run a service out of their house. To do
so, is... well...
...yes? Is...unacceptable? Is...worth bouncing mail addressed to?
Feel free to drop me from the list if you really feel that I am sinning
that egregiously against the email system by running my own mailserver,
and running only the one. (I won't _like_ it, but it's your list.)
2:34 a.m.
Except for someone trying to run a service out of
their house. To
do so, is... well...
[...]? fighting DSL bottlenecks at the DSLAM, etc. etc.
So far this hasn't proven to be a problem. Averaging over the last 30
days, I have used 3158.7 bytes/sec incoming, 2235.1 bytes/sec outgoing
(both figures in error by less than 1 unit in the last place shown,
assuming netstat is telling the truth about byte counts).
Certainly my DSLAM could in principle be maxed out, but that seems
unlikely; more likely would be that my wire would be maxed out,
something that doesn't seem to happen in practice - at least not
unexpectedly. (I have for example deliberately redlined it when
stress-testing it or the networks adjacent to it; I don't count that.)
Is simply not the best way to run a mail server.
Actually, for me, I believe it is the best way to run a mailserver.
That is, of course, taking into account issues such as cost. Yes, if
cost were not an issue, I agree there would be ways in which it could
be run better. But I daresay the same could be said of almost any
mailserver in existence.
I'm not saying people shouldn't do it
actually. I'm merely saying
that when it's done under those conditions, it's hard to complain
about sporadic problems.
Perhaps - but my experience over the past few years has been that I
have fewer problems inbound to my mailserver than through other
mailservers which forward to me.
Now, that could be just a question of what I view as "problems", and
where I see the problem as lying when I see a problem as present. But
since it's my mailserver, it's my metric of goodness too.
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5 Mar
5 Mar
11:45 p.m.
Actually, I can't think of the last time I've
seen ANY domain that didn't
have more than one MX record. Except for someone trying to run a service out
of their house. To do so, is... well...
I have two MXes, but I'm running my network from my apartment. Is that okay?
The servers are in the dining room. :)
--
---------------------------------- personal: http://www.armory.com/~spectre/ --
Cameron Kaiser, Floodgap Systems Ltd * So. Calif., USA * ckaiser at floodgap.com
-- A battle avoided cannot be lost. -- Sun Tzu --------------------------------
6 Mar
6 Mar
2:01 a.m.
On Sat, 5 Mar 2005, Jay West wrote:
Actually, I can't think of the last time I've
seen ANY domain that didn't
have more than one MX record. Except for someone trying to run a service out
of their house. To do so, is... well...
Having a data center to play with makes you spoiled :) I've run my own
mail server on the same little PentiumPro system for at least 6-7 years
now without many problems. In fact, it runs pretty much problem free.
No need for redundant mail servers. And I certainly don't want to trust
my mail to a third party. I like controlling my stuff...that way I can be
sure that if it gets f-d up, it's my fault and not the fault of some moron
whom I then have to rely upon to fix it.
--
Sellam Ismail Vintage Computer Festival
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
International Man of Intrigue and Danger http://www.vintage.org
[ Old computing resources for business || Buy/Sell/Trade Vintage Computers ]
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2:16 p.m.
Tony, I think you're missing something here.
ISP's pretty much always have
secondary and tertiary mail servers. Just taking down ONE server doesn't
make your mail bounce. The classiccmp server would try the secondary. For
example, your ISP (demon.co.uk) has two mail servers set up. Surely they
don't take BOTH of them down for maintenance at the same time ;)
There ahve been a few times when demon has (AFAIK) accepted no incoming
mail at all. Maybe because both servers are down, maybe because of
network problems (which may not actually be the fault of demon),
maybe.... I don't try to understand what the problem is, I have enough
trouble keeping my machines running, without bothering about machines I
can't get to fix anyway...
-tony
6:43 p.m.
Jay West wrote:
2) I changed the max time in queue for any message
(outbound) to 35
minutes. This means the server will try to send email to you once, then
again 30 minutes later, and then it will just give up on you. It won't
unsubscribe you at that point, it takes like 7 days of bounces to get
you unsubbed. But it won't try to send you any given list post more than
twice now. Same reason as above.
My 2p-worth on it, which you may not want to hear from a relative newcomer.
BUT - and it's a big but, so let's say it again - BUT!
Do any of us pay for this mailing list?
I personally don't. I think that Jay does a great job under difficult
conditions - particularly the last month, which by the sound of it has
mostly been firefighting - and we should all be grateful there's a list
at all.
How often do you have as much as half an hour's downtime? I personally
think the timeout should be longer, perhaps four hours or so. I can
understand the arguments for short and the arguments for long. I've run
plenty of mail servers, fixed more than a few others, and even written
one (long since dead, thank goodness - it was utter shite and I am
embarrassed to even look for the disks these days).
If I have a period of lossage greater than half an hour, then I will go
and check if I'm still subscribed. If not, I'll just resubscribe, and
check the archives in my Copious Free Time. Maybe I'll even post a mail
to the list saying "I was unsubbed for a while there, did anyone say
anything relevant to me?"
If this happens often enough that resubbing becomes a nuisance, then I
will consider subscribing with a more reliable email address. I have
masses of Gmail invites. Please feel free to ask if you want one.
As I say, just my thoughts on it.
Gordon JC Pearce.
7 Mar
7 Mar
1:38 a.m.
It was thus said that the Great Gordon JC Pearce once stated:
Jay West wrote:
> 2) I changed the max time in queue for any message (outbound) to 35
> minutes. This means the server will try to send email to you once, then
> again 30 minutes later, and then it will just give up on you. It won't
> unsubscribe you at that point, it takes like 7 days of bounces to get
> you unsubbed. But it won't try to send you any given list post more than
> twice now. Same reason as above.
I'm wondering what brought this on, because I *just* started getting email
again. I run my email server at home (basically because the coloated server
it used to be on was removed without much notice---long story with that).
But then over the past week, I moved houses. My domain (as well as a few
others) have backup MX hosts (two) but I was concerned about getting my
system up and running within four days (as it was, seven days).
I'm not sure if any of my email actually bounced (it queued up for three
days on my back up MX servers, then when I tried to have the mail delivered
locally on one of the backup MX servers it was all sent to a friend for some
bizarre reason I'm still trying to fathom) but I'm glad to see I haven't
been unsubscribed here.
-spc (Not only was I moving, but the office I work in was moving as
well ... it was *not* a good week ... )
7073
days inactive
7075
days old
23 comments
11 participants
participants (11)
-
ard＠p850ug1.demon.co.uk -
fernande＠internet1.net -
gordon＠gjcp.net -
julesrichardsonuk＠yahoo.co.uk -
jwest＠classiccmp.org -
mouse＠Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA -
spc＠conman.org -
spectre＠floodgap.com -
tomj＠wps.com -
trixter＠oldskool.org -
vcf＠siconic.com