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Re: More about problems with large email?

1997-10-17 12:48:29
Mike Frisch <mfrisch(_at_)saturn(_dot_)tlug(_dot_)org> writes:
Can somebody provide more information about the problems procmail has with
large email?  I would like to implement site wide filtering, but if it's
going to affect users' mailboxes by corrupting or not delivering large
mail, I will not do it.

I am running procmail v3.10 1994/10/31 with sendmail 8.8.5 on Linux
2.0.29.


What do you mean by large?  Do you currently have a limit on how big a
message sendmail will accept?  Procmail will not corrupt a mailbox or
lose mail just because a huge message comes in.  The worst that will
happen is that procmail will allocate a huge amount of memory -- enough
to hold the message plus malloc's overhead, though for some libc's the
latter can be as big as the message itself -- which can bring your
machine to a virtual stand still.  A quick checks shows that Linux
2.0.30 has a relatively efficient malloc which doesn't appear to
require too much beyond the message itself.  I would suggest that you
upgrade to version 3.11pre7, then go for it.  We've been using 3.10,
then 3.11pre3, 4, and 7 here at Gustavus for a few years now with nary
a problem that wasn't the fault of something else (kernel bug, broken
MUA, stupid sysadmin tricks, etc).


Philip Guenther

(In case someone cares...)

---------------------------------------------------------------- 
Philip Guenther                 UNIX Systems and Network Administrator
Internet: guenther(_at_)gac(_dot_)edu   Voicenet: (507) 933-7596
Gustavus Adolphus College       St. Peter, MN 56082-1498

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