Re: productivity?

Hector Santos wrote:
> > One issue not raised here: ephemeral port exhaustion. It's a rather 
> > specialized problem, more of an issue for Windows folks than Linux, 
> > and mostly an issue for routers, proxies, and similar devices that 
> > tend to funnel a large volume of mail to smaller number of 
> > destinations. But it's a real problem, one where reusing existing 
> > client connections can provide a complete and permanent resolution.
> The ephemeral port exhaustion exploit began with Microsoft DNS server 
> DoS attacks....
I'm talking about the normal operational condition where an SMTP sender 
connects repeatedly to the same receiver. On platforms where the default 
ephemeral port space is small (e.g., Windows Server 2003 and older BSD 
kernels), the sender can exhaust the ephemeral ports. For those of us in 
the filtering business, this is a constant nuisance.
The problem can be mitigated by increasing the number of ephemeral ports 
(Vista defaults to the IANA recommend range), reducing TIME_WAIT, or 
(tada!) reusing connections.
None of which has any relevance to any existing RFCs. But tuning 
connection reuse might make for an interesting Informational doc or BCP.
<csg>