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Path: euryale.cc.adfa.oz.au!newshost.anu.edu.au!harbinger.cc.monash.edu.au!news.mel.connect.com.au!munnari.OZ.AU!news.ecn.uoknor.edu!paladin.american.edu!europa.chnt.gtegsc.com!news.msfc.nasa.gov!elroy.jpl.nasa.gov!aremorica.jpl.nasa.gov!f.odonnell From: f.odonnell@jpl.nasa.gov (Frank O'Donnell) Newsgroups: comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc Subject: Hardware for a FreeBSD 2.1 majordomo server Date: Mon, 8 Jan 1996 21:25:54 GMT Organization: Jet Propulsion Laboratory Lines: 46 Message-ID: <f.odonnell.651.30F18BE2@jpl.nasa.gov> NNTP-Posting-Host: 137.78.104.20 X-Newsreader: Trumpet for Windows [Version 1.0 Rev B final beta #4] We recently took delivery on a FreeBSD 2.1 CD-ROM set that we'd like to use to put up a machine to act as a mailing list server running majordomo. If possible, we would like to do this on some surplus PC hardware we have available in our office. I realize that this hardware isn't optimal, but I was curious to get some reaction if it sounded like it would work. The PC we had in mind is a 486DX2-66 no-name clone with 8 MB RAM, a 340-MB Western Digital IDE hard drive and an NE2000 network card. We tried out FreeBSD 2.05 (the CD-ROM release version) on a machine of this type and it seemed generally to do ok. At this point we're more interested in the question of what kind of requirements its expected use for majordomo might put on it. It's hard to gauge usage, but this will probably host a half dozen lists that could attract many hundreds or even low thousands of subscribers. Actual message traffic, however, will not be particularly high; typically the lists combined would only move two or three messages a week. A few specific questions ... -- Given the above use, does 8 MB RAM and 340 MB hard drive sound ok? Are there any rules of thumb for how magnitude of mailing list operations translates to hardware needs? -- What about sizing of a swap partition, given the above? Any special needs there, above and beyond the usual rule of X times amount of RAM? -- Any special considerations in getting and configuring majordomo? We tried a test server last year using majordomo on a spare 386, and as I recall we ran into a few problems, at least some of which seemed to be traceable to the versions of perl and majordomo we were using. I see that there is a port of perl included on the FreeBSD 2.1 CDs, although there doesn't seem to be a FreeBSD-specific port of majordomo (although the server that hosts the FreeBSD mailing lists uses majordomo, if memory serves). -- Anything else before we leap in? I realize that the hardware we have available is not an optimal FreeBSD box; if we were building a system from scratch, we'd for sure use SCSI hard drives and choose a better motherboard. We also realize that, if the lists grow to be pretty big, the machine may take a while to send out every message. That's acceptable; we'd just like to get something in place that will minimally work. Thanks for any feedback! Frank f.odonnell@jpl.nasa.gov