sendmail Performance Tuning

"This book is great. Nick covers a wide range of materials--everything from how to architect the mail system and what disks to buy to how to configure your router. This book should be a basic reference for anyone who needs to get down into the guts of a sendmail-based system and make it shine."

--Eric Allman, the creator of sendmail and Chief Technical Officer, Sendmail, Inc.

As email traffic continues to increase, system administrators must be able to guarantee that their email servers can deliver reliable performance today and bear larger loads tomorrow. sendmail Performance Tuning is a practical guide to building, tuning, and testing email servers based on sendmail to function more efficiently, handle more messages, and resist both accidental and malicious load-related incidents.

Featuring sendmail 8.12 (and earlier versions), the book begins with an introduction to sendmail and performance tuning. Author Nick Christenson then describes best practices for building, installing, and maintaining a system and details proven techniques for tuning email relaying, reception, and sending. This strategic guide to configuration and security is followed by precise directions for managing bottlenecks and load testing. By the book's end, readers should know exactly how to optimize system performance.

Key topic coverage includes:

• A detailed description of the step-by-step operations that occur during email transmission and reception
• How to send and store email most efficiently
• What the performance characteristics of POP and IMAP are
• How to determine which sendmail configuration parameters might improve performance
• How to locate and eliminate bottlenecks
• Methods and pitfalls in testing email servers before they are installed in a production environment

Whether you are looking to solve an immediate problem or gain a deeper understanding of email servers, sendmail Performance Tuning provides clear guidance and valuable insight.

Table of Contents

Preface.
1. Introduction.
2. sendmail Introduction.
3. Tuning Email Relaying.
4. Tuning Email Reception.
5. Tuning Email Sending.
6. Configuration, Security, and Architecture.
7. Finding and Removing Bottlenecks.
8. Load Generation and Testing.
9. Conclusion.
Bibliography.