mailing list service

[steve ravet]

> | John, can you give us an idea what the minimum requirements would be for
> | a machine to handle the lists in non digest mode and the WWW traffic?  I
> | guess a 100 Mbit/sec connection would also be good?
> 
> Hi Steve,
> 
> The load is on the order of 40MBytes+ (on heavy days more like 120M)
> each day. I estimate (with diy_efi out of digest mode) from last month
> that there are roughly 580k mail messages each month. Operating these
> lists in _not_ a small task; a dual channel dedicated ISDN would be
> the minimum service if we didn't co-locate. Please make this point
> clear to your sister... our bandwidth usage is not insignificant.
> 
> I can run the machine from here, BUT... most likely, someone will have
> to physically touch it once a year to do OS upgrades. I would
> recommend that I have the machine for a week or two to set it up
> before shipping to Dallas.
> 
> john gwynne

I get up to DFW a couple times a year for visits so upgrades won't be a
problem.  I've been browsing Dell and Compaq WWW pages and it looks like
we can get a Celeron 64MB type machine for about $1000.  I keep hearing
about Linux pre-installed but the only OS options I've seen are 98 and
NT.  Guess we'll need a red-hat CD also.  I'll let John handle that if
we go this route.

As far as one-list and the other free services, the main problem I see
is limited file space (5MB) and lack of CGI support.  I think we'll run
into that at most of the free services which is why I think a dedicated
machine is the way to go.

Our current machine (according to uname -a) is an "i686", whatever that
means (PPro?  PII)?  It was staggering under the load of non-digest
diy_efi, so the machine requirements apparently aren't trivial.  Would a
300-600 MHZ Celeron 64MB machine handle things?

--steve

-- 
Steve Ravet
steve.ravet at arm.com
Advanced Risc Machines, Inc.
www.arm.com