*BSD News Article 85230


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From: nick@eunet.ie (Nick Hilliard)
Newsgroups: comp.mail.sendmail,comp.mail.smail,comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc
Subject: Re: Sendmail vs. Smail...
Followup-To: comp.mail.sendmail,comp.mail.smail,comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc
Date: 19 Dec 1996 14:30:01 -0000
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References: <57tf61$gq7@raven.eva.net> <1996Dec16.152941.1706@isac.hces.com> <1996Dec1721.54.58.11342@koobera.math.uic.edu> <598tvm$t0h@ezekiel.eunet.ie> <1996Dec1821.08.45.5092@koobera.math.uic.edu>
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D. J. Bernstein (djb@koobera.math.uic.edu) said:
: You're really getting hung up on the fact that most mail gets through.
: Nobody's disputing this. I'm simply pointing out some of the reasons
: that _on occasion_ multiple RCPTs are a disaster.

The number of times that multiple RCPT's cause problems is small -- almost
unappreciable.  The number of times that multiple RCPT's is efficient (from
a traffic/ bandwidth/other system utilisation POV) is large.

I'm pointing out that when multiple-RCPT messages cause problems, the
problems can generally be fixed *in a better manner* by other means.  In the
case that you mentioned, sending lots of messages with single RCPT is not a
fix; it's a kludge (which works at a cost).

: Huh? Anything else would drastically slow down mailing lists. In qmail,
: every delivery happens immediately, subject to the concurrency limit set
: by the sysadmin. This is the obvious way for an MTA to work.

The delivery delay in sending messages with multiple envelope address is
generally not large - it might cause a short delay, but nothing that anyone
could complain about.  If you you send lots of messages with single RCPT's,
then depending on the amount of concurrency you permit, you make a marginal
gain in delivery speed at the expense of using considerably more IP traffic
(particularly if the email is large) and more system resources at both the
local and remote ends.  IMHO, this speed gain does not justify the
efficiency loss.

Nick