EXIM Slow Sending, PLEASE HELP!

[David Garza]

Hello,

This is very important! I need to configure my cPanel server (P4 2.8GHz HT,
1gb RAM) so that it can send many emails at once. It seems to only be able
to send an avg of 11/s and I have a very large mailing list that must have a
higher average. I heard people achieving 42 emails/s by queuing it only, and
then maintaining a minimum of 127 EXIM queue processes, but I am not sure
how to do that. PLEASE HELP! I am paying for a server I cannot get to send
the email as needed!

The mail just continues to build up in the queue and soon becomes over
1,000. I don't really care about load, since it is a dedicated mailing list
server.

I do not have the mail scanner enabled to speed things up, I have a blank
file in /etc/blank

Here is my exim.conf config:



----------------------------------------------------------------------------
----

smtp_accept_max = 100
deliver_queue_load_max = 100
smtp_accept_queue = 150
# smtp_accept_queue_per_connection = 1000
# queue_run_in_order = false
timeout_frozen_after = 5h
split_spool_directory = true
retry_interval_max = 12h
# queue_only = true
auto_thaw = 60s
queue_run_max = 500
remote_max_parallel = 10
system_filter=/etc/blank

----------------------------------------------------------------------------
----

Thanks and God Bless!
__________________
D A V I D


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[Tim Jackson]

Post by David Garza
This is very important!

For future reference, that can put people off replying...

Post by David Garza
I need to configure my cPanel server (P4 2.8GHz
HT, 1gb RAM) so that it can send many emails at once.

I think you need to firstly look at how you are injecting the messages
into Exim, as this may be a significant factor. Are you doing it by:

a) calling exim|sendmail on the command line?

b) building a batch SMTP (BSMTP) file and using that?

c) connecting to yourserver:25 and running SMTP sessions?

d) exim -bS locally?

e) something else?


Chances are that you would be best doing it with (b) if you aren't
already.

Post by David Garza
It seems to only be able to send an avg of 11/s

That's >600/min. Not all that bad. Presumably it's on a high bandwidth
connection?

Post by David Garza
I heard people achieving 42 emails/s by queuing it only, and
then maintaining a minimum of 127 EXIM queue processes, but I am not >
sure how to do that.

Set the "queue_only" option, and then start lots of queue runners (exim
-q).

Tim

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[Tim Jackson]

Hi David, on Sat, 1 May 2004 09:24:46 -0400 you wrote:

[Please reply on the list, and if you could quote properly that would help
an awful lot too.Thanks. http://www.netmeister.org/news/learn2quote.html ]

Post by Tim Jackson
I think you need to firstly look at how you are injecting the messages
a) calling exim|sendmail on the command line?

1) I am using Option a. to send email. The script is called ARP3 from
arp3.com.

OK, I don't know anything about this, but if it really is sending via
option A then I would look at trying to find an alternative that builds a
BSMTP file. However, if you must send using this option, queue_only should
help a lot, because otherwise Exim will be immediately forking a delivery
process for each message submitted (assuming that each subscriber receives
some kind of customised message, which is likely). This is a good way to
fill your process table quite quickly and probably not helpful.

1) A guy came to me today about a patch he has that he said that will
http://simscripts.com/exim_multiple_interfaces_patch.html Is what he is
proposing worth paying him $100 for or no?
From the description, I don't really see how that is going to improve

performance. The point of it seems to be to rotate around a number of
source IPs, the only benefit stated (and which I can see) being that it
might help avoid you ending up in SpamCop, but hopefully if you've
actually got a well-run mailing list then the incidence of that and the
consequences thereof should be limited.

2) If I were to queue_only, and setup a cron job to run for exim -q
every minute, wouldn't the exim-q processes build up after a long time
until they are out of control?

Possibly, yes. Bear in mind that the queue runners exit once they have
finished their run (they don't hang around forever), but depending on how
many and how often you started them there is a danger that by doing it
automatically you might swamp yourself. I have a feeling that others on
this list who have more experience with very large queues and large
numbers of queue runners might be able to offer some additional help.


Tim

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[Andreas J Mueller]

Hi David!

Saturday, May 1, 2004, 6:01:48 PM, in a message quoted by Tim Jackson,

2) If I were to queue_only, and setup a cron job to run for exim -q
every minute, wouldn't the exim-q processes build up after a long time
until they are out of control?

Do not use cron jobs to start the queue runners. Start the exim
daemon with -q1m and let itself start the queue runners. The maximum
concurrent number of queue runners can then (and only then) be limited
using the queue_run_max configuration option, which defaults to 5.

Andy


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