RE: pop server in an ISP environment

["Dmitri Krioukov" <dima () dimension net>]

qpopper was written without even slightest thought about
performance issues. there is a lot of other pop3 daemons
written much more efficiently. (i don't any other that
would perform worse than qpopper). try cucipop, for
example. it was written by the same guy who wrote
procmail. the source code is unreadable in both cases.
--
dima.

> -----Original Message-----
> From: owner-nanog () merit edu [mailto:owner-nanog () merit edu]On Behalf Of
> Muljawan Hendrianto
> Sent: Friday, May 26, 2000 5:38 AM
> To: nanog () merit edu
> Subject: pop server in an ISP environment
>
>
>
> Hello all,
>
> I would like to have your opinions regarding pop server set-up in 
> an ISP environment, what would be the common software used, 
> authentication type etc.
>
> I am thinking about using QPOPPER+procmail, but some people say 
> that it is not scalable because its authentication is based on 
> /etc/passwd. And in Unix environment there is certain 
> recommendation not to have more than 5000 users in /etc/passwd file.
>
> Another issue is high availability, does any body use server 
> clustering in an ISP environment?  
> I am thinking about having a Sun Cluster for these pop servers, 
> but will I need a special HA agent ?
> AFAIK, the qpopper daemon will be initiated by the users (via 
> inetd) when they are accessing their mailbox.
> Hence a Sun cluster will not need a special agent because, if one 
> of the servers crashed, the clustering software should 
> manage to redirect any traffic to the second server, so that the 
> users will connect transparently to that qpopper daemon in the 
> second server.
> Does clustering in the real world can do the above scenario?
>
> What about LDAP for user's authentication ? Is it recommended to use ?
>
> Any suggestions/hints will be greatly appreciated.
>
> ps: the system should be able to accomodate about 20000 users.
>
> regards,
> Muljawan