[Mimedefang] how many multiplexors

[Joseph Brennan]

The sample init script for multiplexor suggests a maximum of 10
processes.

The smallest of our mail servers, a one-processor Sun Netra,
gets 60 to 110 messages a minute and has about about 20 sendmail
processes running at a time.  I boosted the max multiplexor
processes to 100 to see where it would go.  From multiple
observations, it appears to be half the number of sendmails
(I wonder why).  Ten is therefore close to the right number
but it must spike a little higher occasionally as syslog
showed it tempfailing occasionally when I had it set to 10.

We're going to install soon on an eight-processor Sun 4500 that
handles over 400 messages a minute.  So we need to make the limit
very large.

Given sendmail running with a reasonable QueueLA and RefuseLA,
controlling the system load, what effect does the multiplexor
maximum have?  Is it sensible to set it very high just as a
sanity check, or should I try to tune it pretty close to what
I expect to need?

I'm wondering what other people have done.

Joseph Brennan          Columbia University in the City of New York
postmaster at columbia.edu                 Academic Technologies Group